Alex is a cheerful and friendly lady. She loves a chat and would stop to talk to anyone about anything at anytime. Alex also loves animals, especially birds.

Alex was a cheerful little girl too. When she was 4 years old she became very ill. Her parents didn’t understand what was wrong and took her to the hospital. To their surprise she spent 3 days in a coma.

Alex suffered very bad epilepsy after that and as a result of the severity of her seizures developed an intellectual disability.

Alex now lives in a HWNS group home in Sydney. When she was first introduced to us she would not interact with others and wanted to spend most of her time in her room. Alex was withdrawn from the world around her. The medication she was taking for epilepsy made her feel lethargic and moody all the time. The staff never knew what to expect from Alex – either abusive behaviour or being ignored all together.

HWNS staff were determined and tried everything to coax Alex out of her shell. They recognised that it was important to have her medication reviewed and changed, which ultimately had a major impact on her life.

After this breakthrough and with much patience and perseverance, staff were able to enter Alex’s world. The transformation of Alex was well underway and it didn’t take long before she was socialising without encouragement and showing enthusiasm in all aspects of her life.

Alex’s dad, Juan, reports "Alex is 100% better since joining the House With No Steps group home. I am very happy to see my daughter bright and cheerful once again."

Alex now has friends, a job in a packaging business, does her own banking, travels independently on public transport and can take herself to her local park to relax and feed the birds, which she loves to do the most.

Alex has achieved so much for herself just by being given the opportunity to do so.