Our support

My name is James Allington. I am 32 years old. I used to live at a Peak 15 service named Horley Row, and I moved this year to a self contained flat at Mullins, Dorking.

I’m doing a good range of activities here. I have been rock climbing at K2, cycling to Bocketts Farm and Brockham, out on lots of walks around the local area, out to Box Hill, Rykas cafe (love seeing the motorbikes!) and I’ve joined the local gym. I have enjoyed going to the pub with my housemates although this is currently on hold due the coronavirus, likewise I used to like visiting Swans Club at Leatherhead and the DJ club at Horsham. I’ve made friends with the other guys at Mullins and we have a good laugh together, often meeting up to watch TV in the lounge in the evenings.

I believe I’m gaining independence here; I prepare a lot of my own food, visit the local shops by myself when I need to, I do most of my own cleaning and laundry, have started my own vegetable plot in the garden and am looking to find a job as soon as possible. I feel empowered to make my own decisions here, for example I decided to set up my own fibre broadband due to patchy signal in my flat. Peak 15 Staff and Head Office have been really good in assisting me with this.

My ambitions for the future include finding work (preferably in a kitchen or cafe), getting another tattoo (I have two already) and going to concerts and shows again as soon as it’s possible to do. I was planning to go on a narrow boating holiday this year but am now putting this on hold until next year when I hope we will have obtained a vaccine against the virus.

My name is Amber, I am 28 years old and I have a partner called Chris Bonner who is 27 years old. We have a daughter together who is 2 years old we have been supported by Peak 15 for nearly 3 years now for our family as we both have a learning disability. We get supported twice a day Monday-Saturday.

We learnt quite a lot with our support workers by cooking different meals we also have a car now through the Motability scheme which we are really pleased about as we are going towards our goals to be more independent.

Most of our support workers are driving our car until Chris passes his practical test.

We moved into our house this year which is the 5th February 2020 into a 3 bedroom we have a big garden which is good for our daughter to play in when the weather is nice.

Both of us support Chelsea FC we love gardening, watching films, listening to music.

We both want to be more independent with our 2-year-old in the future. We love learning new things every day.