Callum is just starting to understand his life journey and is keen to allow people to hear about his life and learn from his lived experience. He is someone who has coped with and is coping with the ongoing barriers that affect him.
Callum is 18 and has known that he has been affected by FASD ever since he can remember. FASD and his past experience isn’t all Callum is about, but it still can shape his life. He has had a very difficult start in life. He was 15 months old when he was taken into care. He moved on to adoption at the age of 2 but came back into care again before he was 5. His younger brother is still adopted, but they are in regular contact.
As the care system was causing delays in getting him the support that he needed, he became subject of a Special Guardianship Order in 2021.
In education people have never really understood him, even though the advice that educators have received has been as current as it could have ever been. Callum has lived with FASD and other conditions through his time in education, but he has been failed by both his secondary special provision and Post 16 college.
He is a keen sportsman who wants to follow this as a career and passed his full driving test before he was 18.
Callum has been featured in the national Living FASD magazine on a number of occasions and was the guest author twice explaining how to transition airports using a sunflower lanyard and completing a feature about visiting a premiership football stadium in another. He has also contributed to a number of videos aimed at supporting people with FASD that are found on the Me & MY FASD website.
Callum is now just starting first steps into helping people become more aware of the challenges that care experienced people face.
