Salisbury School saved our daughter, and our family

Lucia is the eldest of four children and has an extremely rare and complex condition – she does not fit into a box, and neither should she. 

 She has the intellectual age of two years old, so as she grew older, she couldn’t fit into a mainstream environment. What kindergarten would take a 60kg teenager, and yet she was at risk in a teenage school setting where she couldn’t communicate if she didn’t like something or felt unsafe.   

I always hoped she had the capacity to learn, but we just didn’t know how much more she could learn because, in her 16 years, she hadn’t had the right environment to reach her unique potential. 

She had been going to a special day school, and the teachers and workers were fantastic, really wrapping around her. But, she had sensory overload having to get ready for school every morning and going back and forth from school to home each day. This routine was too much for her, yet she was expected to learn and behave in the day school setting.  

She also had wonderful families where she would go occasionally for our respite, but as she got older she became more difficult to handle, so these respite workers would need to ‘share her around’. Again, this moving around was unsettling for her, and she let it out on those around her. 

She needed a Lucia-centric solution, rather than this life she was living of having to fit into someone else’s environment. 

I found out about Salisbury School, and despite it being away from our home, it looked like a perfect place for her. Then, the battle with the Ministry of Education to get her enrolled began, and kept going – for a year! This is a whole other story! 

She was finally granted a six-week trial. The change in her was almost immediate. She fitted in, being accepted by her peers, who are now her friends who love and care for her. She has no other setting that has enabled her to have friends, and at 17 years old she deserves to have friends, like any other teenager that age.  

For me I was a bit of a mess initially when we went back home after settling her into Salisbury, but the transition went really smoothly. The teachers at her home school and Salisbury spent a lot of time on a transition plan, that included meeting with Salisbury teachers, so Salisbury knew her really well even before she arrived there. They were also respectful of our family’s faith, and they incorporate her bedtime prayers in her routine every night. 

The school also keeps in touch with us all the time about how she is going or if staff have any questions or updates, we have multiple Zoom calls every week, and we can of course stay in the family house on the grounds when we visit her.  

She is happy and thriving, doing things and achieving things that I never thought possible for her. Her functional learning has been impressive and she also now knows how to make a choice, and when and how to ask for help, which are self-management strategies she didn’t have before. Having these strategies help her to de-escalate, rather than lash out. 

I cannot praise Salisbury high enough for the growth in Lucia. We are now planning her transition back to a residence in our home city in 2025, where she can bring her new life skills.  

The change in her has also helped our family immensely. We can even go for outings with her as a whole family, because when she is happy, we are happy. And because of Salisbury, she is happy.