When Rachelle first arrived at Avenue, she was primarily dependent on community transport for her daily commutes. However, over time, with support and encouragement, she began to take public transport on her own, including buses and trains, without the assistance of community transport services. 

“I don’t get the community transport anymore. I take the bus and the train to work by myself,” Rachelle says proudly. 

“It started after my holiday, when I went on my own for the first time. My NDIS support person said I didn’t need community transport anymore, and since then, I’ve been doing it all by myself.” 

This shift in transportation independence was a significant milestone for Rachelle, helping her build confidence in her ability to navigate the world around her.

In her quest for independence, Rachelle quickly named her next goal as learning to cook. 

Rachelle voiced this to her support worker at Avenue, Matt. While Avenue doesn’t typically offer cooking lessons (apart from on socials), Matt took it upon himself to teach Rachelle to cook, finding time in her lunch breaks to take Rachelle through a weekly lesson. 

“Matt helped me learn how to cook,” Rachelle shares. “I’ve made chicken wraps, chicken salad, and smoothies. I go food shopping and buy the ingredients, and then we cook together,” said Rachelle.

Matt explains that the cooking lessons were largely Rachelle’s idea, sharing “It was Rachelle advocating for herself. She was mentioning that she was frustrated with her food situation. She lives independently, and she was communicating to us that she was frustrated that she had to eat frozen meals that were bought in the supermarket. 

“I offered to teach her to cook. I used to be a chef, so I thought maybe we could find a way to fit a cooking lesson into her day at Avenue, so that we could build towards her independence,” said Matt.

Not only did Matt teach Rachelle how to cook, he also incorporated other learning opportunities into the process.

“The first thing she wanted to make was a smoothie. I asked her to research some recipes and research what equipment we would need to make a smoothie. I asked her to write down how much fruit we needed to buy, and to put it into a Google document on the computer. 

“I could tell it brought Rachelle so much pleasure just to have control over what she could eat.

“I think it’s a very life affirming act, you know, being able to cook food for yourself and feel a sense of independence, control and power. That flows over to everything else,” said Matt.

After a year of weekly cooking lessons, it certainly has flowed over to other areas of Rachelle’s life. She’s secured a job at Friendship Bakery, where she now works two days a week.

“We make croissants, doughnuts, chocolate cake and cheesecake, and it’s all delicious,” said Rachelle. 

Rachelle has ticked off many of her goals at Avenue. She’s become more independent, increasingly efficient in her work team, and has worked with her support worker, Owen, to arm herself with effective emotional regulation techniques. 

Looking to the future, Rachelle wants to progress her cooking skills, working towards tackling more complex recipes.

She also wants to continue coming to Avenue to, in her own words, “see my friends because they are like my family.” 

Rachelle believes others searching for a day program should consider Avenue too, sharing that here, “you can do flyering, beach clean-ups, make money, and make more friends.”