Lucy's Story | More stories

Lucy's Story

"You have to go that little bit extra. It's rewarding and satisfying."

Lucy Ryan is described by her colleagues as a people person, whose own experiences have led her to work and study in the disability field. Since approaching Scope a little over two years ago, Lucy has risen above a post-breakdown state of anxiety to put her personal experiences to work helping people with intellectual and physical disabilities.

Several years ago, 45-year-old Lucy Ryan began to feel overwhelmed by the pressure of many years of caring for her husband, who had incurred spinal injuries and an acquired brain injury in a road accident.

At that time, Lucy was also voluntarily caring for a friend who had similar road trauma injuries, fostering a young girl with spinabifida and caring for a son with schizophrenia.

While coping with the demands of her huge workload, Lucy suffered a nervous breakdown, resulting in anxiety and debilitating panic attacks.

Soon after, organ loss during surgery left her gravely ill and meant Lucy had to cope with a range of physical problems, including a loss of immune system response and an inability to eat solid food.

"The thing that affected me the most was the nervous breakdown, which left me with panic attacks far more debilitating than any physical problem. The loss of control was really frightening."

About two and a half years ago, Lucy was advised to contact Scope to seek a position as a supported employee. She got the job and was immediately accepted into the family at the Knox Combined Industries supported employment unit.

Lucy then worked with the Advanced Attendant Care Agency before securing a permanent position as a Disability Support Worker at Access 189 Day & Lifestyle Options, a Scope adult day centre for people with physical and intellectual disabilities.

"You have to go that little bit extra. It's rewarding and satisfying", Lucy says.

Lucy is backing up her commitment to working in the disability sector over the longer term by studying Certificate 4 in disability work at Swinburne TAFE, accessed through Scope's Employment Futures program.

"Scope, in its practice of providing services for individuals and not categories, has given me a lot of confidence in myself and opened my eyes to the great variance of people with disabilities and the many ways in which they can help to enrich the whole community."

Further information about Employment Futures