Danny, aged 35, has recently come out of a short stay in Woodford Correctional Centre and is living in temporary accommodation in a house in the suburb of Wacol. Danny has a mild intellectual disability but prefers to see himself as having a physical disability as he has some spasticity in his right leg and chronic asthma which makes it difficult for him to walk long distances. Danny had to serve one month's sentence in prison after an altercation with the manager of the disability service Ability Matters he was supported by. The conflict with the manager Felicehad escalated over a period of several weeks, after Ability Matters refused to support Danny to go to the local shopping centre. His direct care workers in the group home he lived in on the Sunshine Coast had been instructed to keep Danny at home, as the last time he had gone to the shopping centre he had upset other shoppers. He had used one of the ride on scooters provided by the centre to get around, but was reckless with his speed and kept running into people. Danny had found this amusing, and the service felt the best way to manage this behaviour was to bar Danny from the centre for a few weeks. Danny didn't take kindly to this new restriction imposed on him, and argued with the male support worker, smashing one of the windows in the house in anger. Fortunately, no one was harmed by the incident. Police had been called to the house and under the instructions of the service, decided only to issue Danny with a warning. After this incident, the service decided that Danny would not be allowed to attend the weekly social events with other service users until he was more settled in his behaviour. Danny responded to these further restrictions by continually visiting the office of the service to talk to the manager Felice. Felice tried her best to be patient with Danny, but Danny was very persistent, the daily visits were interrupting the other work in the agency and staff were starting to worry about their safety. A restraining order was placed on Danny preventing him from visiting the office. Danny decided at this stage to take the law into his own hands – just like they do in the movies. He felt that Felice had overstepped her mark, and he knew that other service users weren't happy with the service either. What Felice needed was a scare to get her to think straight. Danny purchased a toy gun, entered the office and put the gun up to Felice's head. Felice wasn't sure if the gun was real or not, and fortunately, someone else in the office called the police. Danny hadn't thought through that this would happen. When the police arrived, Danny thought his time was up, that life was too much. When a police officer handcuffed him, Danny tried to reach for the officer's gun. Danny would later say that he did this to kill himself, not to harm the police officer – but this was added to the charges he was already facing for brandishing the toy gun. Danny pleaded guilty to the charges made against him in court, which included going armed to cause fear, assaulting and obstructing a police officer, and contravening directions. He was sentenced to three months imprisonment with possibility of release after serving one third of the sentence. The severity of the sentence was likely because Danny had been in trouble with the police over a protracted period of time. By the time Danny had entered Woodford there was no possibility of returning to the group home he had lived in. This in itself wasn't such a bad thing for Danny as he thought the workers were 'wankers' there and he was tired of sharing his living space with others. Danny had spent a large part of his early life in residential homes for children and young people in State care. His mother Anna had a mental illness (Danny can't remember what it was) but she had made several suicide attempts over the years and was often in and out of psychiatric hospitals. She could not care for Danny as a child. Danny's father Bill divorced Anna when Danny was a baby and moved up north to Cairns. Bill had failed to keep in touch and it is believed he died from lung cancer a few years ago. Anna eventually remarried a man named Robert, which Danny gets on well with. Robert was an alcoholic for many years, but Danny found him to be a funny drunk who would always give Danny money when he asked for it. As Danny became an adult, he lived in several hostel arrangements. Before moving into the group home run by Ability Matters, Danny stayed in a hostel which was later closed down due to allegations of abuse. Danny said he was abused there by the workers, who would make him do garden work and weeding all day. He said they gave him "hundreds" of pills a day because they were trying to kill him. The pills made Danny very sleepy. The most traumatic part of living at this hostel for Danny was that he was sexually abused by two other male residents there. These other residents also had a disability, so according to Danny, the hostel staff did not report the abuse and pretended it didn't happen. Danny's mother Anna stepped in to help Danny and found him a place in a group home with Ability Matters. Unfortunately, Danny never quite recovered from the trauma he had experienced, and had tremendous difficulty trusting the workers and the other two people with a disability who lived with him. By the time he had committed the acts against Felice and the police officer, Danny had become accustomed to responding with aggression to stressful life events. Prescribed medication (Seroquel and other drugs) from his psychiatrist to manage his anxiety were only superficial measures to address the pain of the past, and it was clear from the chain of events at Ability Matters, that this service did not have the expertise or resources to really help Danny. Prison life for Danny wasn't as bad as he thought it would be. There was a routine to his day which he could mostly manage, which included playing computer games and watching TV in his cell. Danny was well liked by the other prisoners, so much so, that he represented a security threat – prison officers were concerned that Danny was being used as a drug mule inside, and therefore Danny had to be strip-searched in the morning and the evening to ensure no drugs were planted on him. Danny found this to be traumatic, but equally problematic was the lack of understanding from some prison guards about his slow gait. Danny could not move quickly from one area to another in prison, and would be yelled at by some guards. There were also several times when he had trouble with incontinence and getting to the toilet in time. In addition, the prison guards struggled to ensure that Danny maintained proper hygiene, such as regular showering and cleaning his teeth. What was even more concerning was what would happen to Danny when he left prison. Where would he go? Corrective Services do not provide transitional support for short-term prisoners upon release, and Ability Matters were no longer willing to provide support for Danny in the community. Ability Matters had referred the matter to the Department of Communities and therefore the Department was able to arrange temporary accommodation and staffing in a former institutional villa at Wacol. This arrangement wasn't ideal, as Wacol is a long distance from the Sunshine Coast and from Danny's social and family connections. An arrangement was made with the service you work for called Step Up. You are the appointed case manager from Step Up who is supporting Danny's transition to a new living arrangement. Step Up is a not-for-profit organisation who provides support for people with a disability to live in their own homes and be part of their local community. They are known on the Sunshine Coast as an agency that provides support to people with complex needs. The Department of Communities has finally acknowledged that Danny's case warrants extra resources and they have specified to Step Up that their role will include: · Finding Danny a safe and welcoming home to live in close to friends and family · Supporting Danny in developing independent living skills , including managing his money which he has had difficulty doing in the past · Facilitating a new assessment of psychotropic medication for Danny · Addressing the problematic behaviour which got Danny into trouble with the law by developing a Positive Behaviour Support Plan in line with the relevant Disability Services Act 2006 legislation