An incident at a local gym had led Clive to get banned. This prompted a referral to one of our Behaviour Support team.
Assessments showed that this incident had been Clive’s understandable reaction to a build up of difficult experiences during that week. Local teenagers were targeting Clive, they had kicked his door late at night, stolen his lawnmower, let his guinea pigs out of their cages at night, pressured him into giving them money and had even woken him up in the middle of the night by standing in his bedroom.
To cap it all Clive lost his wallet at the gym the previous week and the receptionist said he couldn’t come in without it!
Dealing safely with victimisation
The behaviour analyst and Clive’s support worker worked with him to learn some strategies to deal safely with victimisation.
- Clive learnt to say “I don’t know you” and walk away if teenagers asked him for money
- Clive learnt to call the police using a panic button if someone was harassing him at home or by using a mobile phone when out of the house on his own
- Clive used a social story to remind him what to do when people harassed him in the street.
Clive also worked on skills that he could use to help himself when he was stressed about something:
- Clive practiced using his exercise equipment when he got stressed
- He learnt to tell his support worker what had happened to make him stressed so that they could help
- Clive learnt to record what had happened on a Dictaphone so he could tell someone about it later.
- Clive used role play at home to practice what he should do when there were situations that stressed him out.
Once he mastered these skills he practiced them in the places where he would need to use them.
Clive is moving to a new home!
What happened next?
- Clive had no incidents for six months
- Clive is no longer making panicky phone calls to his support worker and team leader
- Clive is now attending the gym again once or twice a week with support from his support worker and is coping well with this.
- When Clive has encountered difficult situations over recent months, e.g. thinking someone may have asked him for money, he has handled these well, i.e. going straight home and letting someone know so they could inform the police
- Clive recently had to give video evidence to the police related to his neighbour being assaulted and burgled and he remained calm throughout and coped very well
- Clive seems much more relaxed when out in the community
- Clive’s support worker now feels confident to use roleplay to help Clive understand new situations on her own initiative
- Clive has finally secured funding to be able to buy his own home, so he will soon be able to move to a better area.
Below, you can see Clive talking about his home and his work.
