Case Study Two (Disability): Hassan: What Facilitates a Good Life?
Case Study Two (Disability): Hassan: What Facilitates a Good Life?
This case study is in relation to a 22-year-old adult named Hassan who lives with a learning/intellectual disability. Hassans parents are from Dubai and the family speaks Arabic at home. Hassan lives with his parents who work full time, two brothers, a sister and grandmother who doesnt speak English. Hassans family are devoutly religious they value their Muslim traditions. Regarding Hassans learning disability, his speech is impaired, he is challenged by reading and handwriting as well as living with limited physical mobility resulting in requiring moderate assistance with personal care tasks and activities of daily living. Although Hassan lives with impairments, he considers himself like other young adults, he does not wish to be seen as tragic and wants to have a life typical of other young people his age. Hassan likes sport (to watch but would like the opportunity to play), music, fashionable clothes, movies and misses his friends from school. Hassan has a speech and language therapist, Jean who is working with him around computerized assistive technology, but he is reluctant to engage with a Developmental Educator or Occupational Therapist to work through his reading and writing issues.
Hassan has been working at an Australian Disability Enterprise (ADE) three days a week for the last 12 months in a sorting a packaging section. Hassan has some funding from the NDIS to support his engagement in work, to learn independent living skills, and build capacity around social and community engagement. In addition, he has workers from a support agency visiting at home twice a day for one hour at a time to assist him with simple everyday tasks and activities of daily living. Hassan is getting more and more frustrated and angry every day. There are many reasons for his verbally abusive outbursts.
After interviewing him, this is what I came to know about his family background and the way things are going for Hassan. Hassan feels he is a burden on his parents, as they both work, and they do not have the time to support him without formal support services. This also frustrated Hassan as he needs more time from people who are close to him as well as more engagement with peers and the broader mainstream community. Hassan does get some amount of support from his grandmother but that is not enough as he cannot openly communicate with her in Arabic. Hassan feels uncomfortable being left as a responsibility for others. Even though he cannot perform everyday tasks by himself, he still finds this inconvenient. For example, he does not like to go to bed early. Hassan is disturbed by the thought of not attending the ADE even though he is engaging in menial packing tasks; without this employment he would not have any activities to do. It costs him more money than he earns to attend the ADE. Although Hassan portrays a friendly attitude towards support staff, he is not comfortable with their presence and is feels somewhat abused and like he does not have an ordinary life.
Another important issue in Hassans life is about what will happen to him in future. Hassan would like a relationship with a woman but is uneducated around relationships and sexual health and using online apps and sites, so he feels unsure and uncertain. Hassans parents are supportive and encourage him to consider marriage and a family but are not sure how to support this in a positive way as Hassan has few peers or older Muslim friends to guide him. How would you work with Hassan to facilitate a good life of his choosing?
