Valentina came to The Children’s Trust in 2019 just after she turned ten years old, after sustaining a brain injury from falling from a third-floor balcony onto marble flooring at home.
During her placement, Valentina's rehabilitation programme included an intensive schedule of physiotherapy, speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, and more.
The family shared their experience back in 2019.
At the time Janine told us that, despite Valentina making good progress with her physical recovery, the hidden impacts of a brain injury were challenging: “her therapy team helped to build up her strength and mobility, most importantly they uncovered additional things that she needed support with. These were things I didn’t even know about as it was all still so new to me.
“Valentina had recovered so well physically that I hadn’t recognised a lot of the other effects of her injury. About 90% of what Valentina was struggling with was mental – her cognitive skills.”
Valentina is a therapy session at The Children’s Trust in 2019
Six years on
Valentina is now 16 years old, and is in full-time education, embarking on her GSCEs.
Janine shares Valentina's progress over the last few years: “Since leaving The Children’s Trust, Valentina has gone from strength to strength. At first going back to school in the pandemic was difficult, however being at home in lockdown gave us as a family the space and time to support Valentina. We were also able to engage a couple of tutors to help her catch up with missed schoolwork and as a vulnerable pupil she was able to go back into school which helped. Valentina has come on leaps and bounds with her academic schoolwork. She tries hard and it has paid off in many subjects. She also enjoys playing drums and it is a good way to break up her school day.”
Valentina today
Living with a brain injury
A brain injury can have a long-term impact on a child. It can lead to difficulties with cognitive skills like memory and attention, affect social and communication skills, as well as causing fatigue. As every brain is so unique, a brain injury can affect people very differently and present very different challenges.
Janine tells us how that can be challenging for a parent of a child with a brain injury: “It can be very difficult to tell if Valentina has the same challenges as any other teenager in society now, as she has a lot of friends that struggle with various issues, especially mental health.
“Getting her to do work when she comes home from school shattered is sometimes impossible – is that her brain injury or her being a teenager? It is hard to know if it’s due to her brain injury or if she would have grown up with the same challenges anyway."
Specialist help
Janine shares how their time at The Children’s Trust laid the foundation for long-term progress: “Without the help of The Children’s Trust in the early days of her rehabilitation it would have been very difficult to know where to start. The staff highlighted the issues I would come across as she got older and the best ways to tackle them.
“Once I saw what methods they used to get Valentina on the road to recovery it was easier to continue down the same vein when we left. After we left The Children’s Trust, we did our own rehab program for eight months before Valentina was well enough to go back to school, a lot of it was based on what we learnt from The Children’s Trust. I will be forever grateful.”
