Young People in Nursing Homes (YPINH), 2019

Acquired Brain Injury

The YPINH Acquired Brain Injury Workshop. Photographs by Rebecca Andrews, 2019.

The objectives of the YPINH  workshop were to bring together a diverse range of service providers, health professionals and representatives of leading agencies (NDIS and NSW Health) to understand the lived experience of people with acquired brain injury (ABI); and to consider what a good life could be for people with ABI within the health and rehabilitation ecosystem.

A number of recurring insights emerged in the group throughout the workshop. These included: the difficulty faced by people with ABI working into a complex system of multiple providers that each have their own institutional paradigm (maintenance or rehabilitation); the need to extend support to family and friends; access to relevant funding for services beyond the basic and immediate needs; appropriate housing and socialisation to avoid isolation and disconnection from community; the loss of identity and the need for the person to re-develop a sense of self within a community; and, the need to pay attention to the person’s aspirations, regardless of how improbable they might seem, such as the desire to return to singing, drive a performance race car or reignite a relationship with a child.