Read how Anya has progressed from learning to travel independently through Grace Eyre’s Travel Buddy, to working for the project herself and her hopes and ambitions for the future. Learn about how Grace Eyre is supporting Anya to build a better future and how you can help do the same for other people with a learning disability and autistic people.
Building confidence with Travel Buddy training
Anya was referred to our Travel Buddy project as she wanted to be an independent traveller before she began a work placement. She was already happy crossing the quiet roads around her home and very quickly became confident at the busier roads near her new workplace. She learnt the route using visual prompts that suited her learning style, recognising the landmarks she passed on the way to orientate herself.
She got a further boost to her confidence by being able to travel to meet her new colleagues. Anya was soon starting and engaging in conversations with many people, something that her shyness and anxiety had previously prevented. She also started volunteering at a charity shop on a familiar route.
As with any journey on public transport, things can go wrong and Anya got on the bus going the wrong way when returning home, instead of this denting her confidence, she put her Travel Buddy problem solving into practice and asked the bus driver to help, contacted her mum for help too and got home safely. Her pride at solving her own problem was shining through the next time she saw her Travel Buddy. This experience built her resilience and helped her training to live an ‘ordinary’ life.
Anya said:
“I really enjoyed the travel training and my travel buddy was really supportive and good to talk to. When I learnt the journey I felt really independent. It was the first time I used the bus by myself. It was a good thing to do and I would recommend it.”
Anya’s mum, Marie, said:
“I can’t recommend Grace Eyre’s travel training scheme enough. My daughter’s confidence in using the bus grew week by week and we are so proud that she can now make her journey by herself. It is not something that we envisaged her being able to do before. My daughter’s travel training buddy was fantastic. She had loads of tips and strategies that would not have occurred to us. Overall, the scheme has boosted my daughter’s confidence and made her feel more independent. I really am enormously grateful to Grace Eyre for that. “
An independent future
Following her completion of travel training, Anya has been using the bus confidently and since 2024 she has been travelling to and from Grace Eyre to take part in Active Lives activities, including our employability and skills training.
Since doing so, she is very proud to have recently started paid employment as a Grace Eyre Travel Buddy herself and is looking forward to sharing advice with others who want to learn to travel independently and increase their confidence. She is delighted, as is her mum, Anya, who said:
“I can’t tell you how much she is enjoying coming to work!”
She is also looking to the future and hopes to be living independently in a home of her own soon. Claire Hudson, Grace Eyre Travel Buddy Team Leader has been extremely impressed with Anya’s progress since they first met and said:
“Anya’s determination to succeed in leading an ordinary life is shining through with all of these steps to independence. She has become a valued member of staff and is a different person to the one I first met all those years ago.”
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