Melbourne

Oh, please don't apologise. It's okay. A small part of the reason why I do share my updates here is to educate people a little, and I could yammer on about this for the rest of the night. I'm not sure exactly which of my posts you've seen, and how much you already know about the system, so forgive me if I say some things you already know

Basically I currently live in residential care, so rather than living with my parents I live in state care (it's essentially a modernised and lower capacity version of an orphanage). There are workers here 24/7 who do most things, cooking, cleaning, washing, dishes, etc, etc.

Lead tenant is for people in residential (or in some cases, kinship/foster care) care 16+ to essentially act as a transition from residential care (where everything is done for you) and total independence (18, when most support ceases). There's a "lead tenant" (although some organisations just call them "mentors", but I call them both) who are volunteers that live there and are supposed to guide/mentor you to build independence. They are more like helpful roommates, rather than full on workers. Dinner, washing, dishes and the rest are all left up to resident.

Technically lead tenant is optional, although as soon as I brought it up, they'd already started packing my bags (metaphorically). What I meant from being forced to move before I was ready was essentially just the above. The first meeting I had with the lead tenant program leader was on the 14th of June, and on the 2nd meeting a week later I was told CP wanted me in there by the 14th of July. 3rd meeting, I was sick, and I couldn't make it. I asked for an extension until at least the 1st of August, and they got back to me saying that the best they would do was the 24th of July. I didn't end up seeing the house until a couple of weeks ago. It also wasn't really about the date, more about my control over the situation being taken

Hope this helps, let me know if you had anymore questions