Katrina is a person we support at Linnet Mews, our specialist home in Derbyshire supporting those with complex neurological needs. She has an acquired brain injury, mild learning disability, and mental health conditions. With a deeply traumatic past, she’s struggled to manage her needs and maintain her independence. Before joining us, Katrina had spent almost 20 years in mental health inpatient settings.
During her childhood, Katrina navigated many complex, traumatic experiences and struggled with mental health difficulties. Her mild learning disability affected how she understood and expressed her emotions. From a young age, she faced lots of uncertainty, particularly when navigating several significant, family losses. Coupled with distressing challenges at school and in personal relationships, she lost trust in others and felt alone and unsure. Living without any emotional support, she couldn’t communicate how she felt. Harbouring her emotions, her mental health declined and she started expressing her distress through difficult, risky behaviours.
Katrina also sought other ways to cope with her feelings. While at school, she became dependent upon alcohol and substances. Further impacting her mental health and behaviour, Katrina journeyed through the forensic system and into inpatient care.
For the first few years, Katrina struggled to settle. She craved independence, but this felt out of her reach. After a long journey as an inpatient, she reached a point where she could embrace life in the community. Since joining us at Linnet Mews in December 2025, our specialist support has empowered Katrina to build behavioural awareness, develop coping strategies, and establish the independence she’s always wanted.
Changes and challenges
Throughout her life, Katrina’s behaviour was a way of communicating her feelings. Shaped by deep-rooted trauma and mental health challenges, her behaviour became her voice. With her mental health and behaviour declining, she needed support to keep her safe.
As a teenager, she was admitted to an inpatient setting, where her mental health and behavioural needs were supported. Initially, she struggled to settle into her inpatient placements. Her past experiences meant she struggled to trust others and didn’t connect with her peers, clinicians, or support teams. Unable to express this verbally, she presented distressed behaviours.
In 2020, Katrina became very unwell and suffered a respiratory arrest. Deprived of oxygen, she suffered a hypoxic brain injury. This injury had a direct effect on a part of her brain that shapes behaviour. Further affecting her emotional balance and behavioural awareness, she faced many barriers.
Moving between different inpatient placements, Katrina’s environment was unstable and triggered a traumatic part of her childhood, when she was frequently moved between family homes. Katrina needed stability and consistency to manage her behaviour and achieve positive outcomes. For a long time, this felt forever out of her reach.
Transitioning to Linnet Mews
For almost twenty years, Katrina dreamed of having more independence and making decisions for herself. Eventually, she found her way to a placement where these wishes were supported. Engaging with some individual and group therapy sessions, she developed some awareness of her behaviours and how they affected others. She developed coping strategies, discovering new ways to express her thoughts and feelings.
Making decisions was important to Katrina. Autonomy had been taken away from her for most of her life. As she progressed through her inpatient care, moments of added independence boosted her wellbeing and lowered her behaviours.
Katrina made positive progress on her journey. Eventually, she was ready to consider transitioning to a community setting. That’s when she discovered Linnet Mews.
Working with her hospital team, we carefully coordinated a 12-week transition, with Katrina’s safety and wellbeing at the heart of every stage. To help her familiarise and adjust to a community environment, we arranged for her to regularly visit her new home. Each time she visited, she brought a piece of clothing with her and left it in her room. Alongside reassuring Katrina she would be moving to Linnet Mews, it also helped her build trust in her team and new environment.
Katrina has many different emotional and physical health needs. When we visited her at the hospital, we collaborated with her clinical team, ensuring we covered all aspects of her care.
Katrina’s transition was one of the biggest moments of her life and our team compassionately ensured she didn’t feel overwhelmed. Carefully managing the process, they used person-centred principles from the moment they met her, empowering feelings of security, reassurance, and confidence.
Community support
Katrina had a history of deliberately harming herself, so we ensured we adapted her new environment to keep her safe. In her new bedroom, we fitted specialist equipment, including anti-ligature fixtures, and ensured we met all the standards for a safe environment. Our team also navigated lots of additional training to meet Katrina’s complex needs, including Positive Behavioural Support (PBS), and trauma-informed care, empowering them with the confidence and skills to safely support her behavioural needs.
When Katrina moved in with us, we engaged her with therapies, like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT),which helped her understand her thoughts and behaviours, and find new strategies for navigating everyday situations. We also coordinated wraparound support, so Katrina could continue to benefit from the expertise of other professionals involved in her care. With this robust support in place, Katrina made positive progress and embraced her independence.
Positive progress
Through our person-centred approach, Katrina was empowered to make decisions about her support from the day she started her transition. Autonomy and independence are crucial to her happiness. With the support of our team, Katrina’s safely achieving the independence she’s always wanted.
Getting to know Katrina as a person, our team identified time management to be a factor in Katrina’s behaviour. Because of the uncertainty she’s experienced throughout her life, she often wants things to happen faster than they can. Adopting openness and honesty, our team helped her understand the processes behind arranging activities. Managing her expectations and prioritising learning, they empowered Katrina with knowledge and awareness. Together, they established timeframes for her activities, promoting reassurance and a consistent routine. Through this approach, Katrina’s established a routine doing the things she loves! She regularly accesses the community to get her hair and nails done, as well as shopping for clothes.
Now, Katrina’s embracing the life she’s always wanted. Steering her focus towards self-care, she’s now navigating a safe, empowering weight loss journey. Often influencing her behaviour, she’s working with our team to ensure she’s educated about healthy eating and weight management. Together, they’re planning healthy meals and regular exercise.
Our team have approached every aspect of Katrina’s support with gentle empathy and robust expertise. She’s re-developing trust in others and even building new relationships outside her home. She’s now considering joining a community health group – something that wasn’t possible before joining us at Linnet Mews.
Specialist neurological support
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