Hi, my name is Phil. I live in Nottingham and I’m supported by ubu and I have been for many years. My life has been very interesting so far and my story is definitely worth a few moments of your time. I really have come a long way…
Life before ubu
Before I came to live in Nottingham with ubu, I lived in an institution. I’m a man of very few words and so the people that supported me didn’t really know very much about me. In fact, so little was known about me, everyone that knows me thought I didn’t have any family! However, my wonderful support team at ubu joined forces with my solicitor to uncover a massive family secret. Not only was I not alone in the world, but I had, in fact, 11 siblings! And that’s only counting my brothers and sisters. My wider family is much, much larger.
Finding My Family
It’s an amazing story, isn’t it – but how did they do it? How did my ubu team and solicitor manage to uncover such a fantastic family surprise?
My enabling team at ubu helped me to plan and prepare for a review meeting. The review meetings allow me to stay on top of my affairs, with support from the ubu team. It’s often at these meetings where I might ask questions, make plans or decisions. During this review meeting, I had asked if my enabling team would be able to support me and advocate for me on my behalf. We felt that it was maybe time to query my past and they helped me to explain how important this was to me.
Because of the support and backing, my solicitor agreed to do some digging. Before too long, he had managed to reach out to my two sisters!
Family Tea Time
It really has been quite an amazing experience that is still developing at I write! With help and support from my enabling ubu team, I was able to invite my sisters to afternoon tea. Yesterday, we all had the opportunity to get together and enjoyed a cup of tea, a slice of cake and one of the biggest catch-ups you could imagine. My ubu team helped me to prepare everything and I’m so very happy to say that our afternoon tea was an amazing success.
They came to visit me and the strangest thing happened! Although it was the first time in 22 years that I had seen them, I recognised them straight away! It was a wonderful day and we spent a lot of time catching up on the years that we hadn’t seen each other. I was able to show them lots of photographs of me across the years and show them what I have been doing. They wanted to hear all about my life and to discover what I’ve been getting up to.
I did say that I am a man of very few words, but not after my visit from my sisters. After enjoying afternoon team with my sisters, I had a lot of processing and catching up to do and my enabling team couldn’t believe how chatty I was. We spent several hours together and there are so many more reunions and meet ups to come- my brothers are planning to come to visit me next and I can’t wait.
The discovery of my siblings has totally transformed my life. Not only have I been able to ask some questions and fill some of the gaps that I may have had but my sisters also brought in a copy of my family tree and now everyone knows where I belong.
