Everlee
Content Warning: These stories are about violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation and may include references to suicide or self-harming behaviours. They may contain graphic descriptions and strong language and may be distressing. Some narratives may be about First Nations people who have passed away. If you need support, please see Contact & support.
Everlee is an elderly woman with an intellectual disability. She lives in a community-based group home with three other ladies. She has an active social life, volunteers in the community and is very positive about her experiences in her group home.
Everlee lived most of her life in a large residential centre run by a company that provides housing and support services for people with intellectual disability. She moved into the centre as a small child. The staff would hit her with spoons and give her ‘a hiding of the tail’. ‘It was rough, those days,’ she said. In one of the homes, ‘they got pins put in [her] head’. This may have been a type of electroconvulsive therapy.
Everlee’s father was president of the company’s board and didn’t want Everlee to leave the centre. She stayed there until her parents died about 12 years ago.
Everlee’s current accommodation is run by the same company but it is a community group home and she describes her new way of life as ‘very good’. Everlee has her own bedroom and ensuite and can live her own life, very different to her past experience.
Everlee enjoys living at the community home even though the three other women who live there are much younger, have significant physical disability and cannot verbally communicate. She is reluctant to move to new accommodation where she might be with residents her own age, because she would have to leave behind her support staff, who she thinks highly of. They ensure her needs are met and take her out every day to her volunteering work, to socialise or to shop.
‘I don’t want anything changed. I want things to stay the same … The staff are good … They care for all of us and … do [a] very good job.’
Everlee’s support worker describes Everlee as a social butterfly who loves travelling. She does volunteer work twice a week, delivering meals and helping in an op shop. She has social activities, is involved in a church group and likes movies, crafts and playing the piano.
Everlee met her fiancé some years ago. She misses seeing him because of the lockdown during COVID-19.
‘We’ve got to wait … I’ll see him soon.’
Disclaimer: This is the story of a person who shared their personal experience with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability through a submission or private session. The names in this story are pseudonyms. The person who shared this experience was not a witness and their account is not evidence. They did not take an oath or affirmation before providing the story. Nothing in this story constitutes a finding of the Royal Commission. Any views expressed are those of the person who shared their experience, not of the Royal Commission.