Terry’s Plan Comes to Life

For the second week, Terry arrived at the House on the Hill kitchen ready for his private cooking and life skills session. Lori McPhaden, a longtime employee of Community Living Parry Sound, was there to welcome him.  “Terry couldn’t get into the kitchen fast enough,” she says, “he was so excited”.  Lori remembers way back when, once a week, Community Living offered a hot lunch to people attending day services and the cost was $2.00 per person. The meal preparation and clean up were shared by everyone. Lori recalls Terry being eager to cut chop and stir even back then.  Now, with personal independence education, Terry is learning to cook for himself, his family and, he hopes one day, to cook for friends as well.

Terry is an enthusiastic planner of his life. Terry has opted to use some of his passport funding to purchase neutral planning through Community Living and, through his planning process; Terry has identified a desire to learn new skills, life skills and recreational skills.  Terry is interested in learning to cook, read, play guitar and to learn social skills so he can arrange to do things with friends.

Sarah Harris is delivering Terry’s personalized cooking program. She says, “While teaching Terry cooking skills Terry told me that he really enjoys being involved in making the food that he and his brother are going to eat”. The first meal Terry made Sarah said he did not want to share, but when he took the chicken and rice dish home, his brother said it looked good. The next cooking lesson, Terry made lasagna and he said he was looking forward to sharing it with his brother.

Sarah’s lessons involve budgeting, recipe selection, grocery shopping, meal preparation, and kitchen cleanup. Sarah and Terry look for recipes that could incorporate foods that are on sale next week as well as using up some of the food they have used in other recipes. Terry has decided to make a beef stew next session. Sarah reports that when Terry is cooking, he follows direction very well and likes to try new things. So far, the only thing Terry is not comfortable with is using a knife. This is where Sarah’s skill at creating strategies for Terry will be helpful to him. When Terry is cooking, he is good at letting Sarah know when he needs help with something, which cues Sarah to think about possible support strategies to support him. After Terry has finished cooking, he is amazing at cleaning everything up and he leaves the kitchen ready to go.

Terry is thriving as his plans come to life.