L was 18 years old at the time and he had never engaged with his own peer group before. He had only really spent time with his mum and dad and immediate family so joining in with ‘new’ activities was a scary experience for him. We quickly realised what he liked and disliked by how he reacted to activities (facial expressions, fluttering eyelids etc.) We taught him to use his hands to tell us ‘yes’ or ‘no’ when he couldn’t use his eyes. This took us about 4 months but we got there in the end! We tried to tailor as many of the activities around L and all of the other children and young people as much as possible. If it was an activity that was not possible for him to access i.e. cooking in the kitchen then he would cook as much as possible outside of the kitchen and another young person, MG, would very often take over his part in the kitchen. MG would help L out a lot during activities and they became really good friends both at MIMO and at our other clubs.

L has now moved on from MIMO. He has moved to residential college and so we don’t see him very often. We get regular updates from his mum and dad though on his behalf and he’s doing really well which is great to hear and we are hoping that he will visit us again when he is home during the summer.