My journey - young people's travel journey to independence

Ethan was already working with Community Connecting to gain some volunteer work.

He agreed with his community co-ordinator that travel training to his local town and back home would be another good step to increasing independence.

Ethan had, on occasion travelled on a bus with his family to town and back but wanted to be able to do this by himself.

To start with Ethan applied for a concessionary bus pass to help with the cost of travelling but found out he was not eligible. With the support of Community Connecting Ethan was shown how to pay for a bus ticket with his bank card.

He was supported to plan the route and find out the times of the buses from his local village bus stop.

To help learn the bus timetable Ethan downloaded the local bus company app to his phone which shows him live updates of where his bus is along the route. This training was completed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As well as learning how to catch the bus, use his bus pass and read the timetable, Ethan had to learn the new safety rules for getting on a bus.

• wearing a face mask when on the bus
• not sitting on blocked off rows of seats
• keeping a distance from other members of the public.

Ethan adapted very well to all the safety measures and was very calm in his manner, listening to advice from his community co-ordinator and parents.

For the first few sessions Ethan had one-to-one support from his community co-ordinator to college and back. He did excellently and gradually over a few sessions, started to do more of the journey by himself until eventually he was doing all the journey independently.

Supported by Melinda Guinness-Yendle
Community Connecting
October 2021