Ms Colette Cahill:

From Crann's perspective, it is different from the work Genio has done with what would be classed as institutional-type homes or community home settings. Crann does not operate like that. We do not have a residential setting as such. We come from a different approach. The families we work with are predominantly with a physical as opposed to intellectual disability. However, at the same time, life skills from a young age are really important. Our programmes are designed to give them life skills in terms of budget management and being able to make a sandwich for themselves, or the life skills and adaptions that might be needed within their environment to ensure they can cope. Kitchens and so on can be set up in such a way. If one is a wheelchair user, one needs the counter to be at a certain height, so it can be accessed. They are the types of things but we work with the whole family on that.

Senator O'Loughlin talked about how we decide what a family needs. It is very much based on our two-generation approach. Based on our model, in our intake process, we very much look at what they want and we ask them. The stakeholders lead our services and we very much follow. They talk about what they want and we look at how we can support them to meet the needs they want for their life goals. As was said, people might not all want to leave home and might be quite happy to stay with their mammies or whatever. It is working towards what they want.

One thing we are working towards is talking to the families about end-of-life and about whether they have thought about what happens to their child or adult in terms of inheritance and who is going to care for them. We have those conversations and we do that from a legal perspective but they are educational sessions. We refer some of what arises out of that to other services which are a better fit to look at supported living for them.