Living alone at 16 with 33 people

So, I was 16 and accepted into a 'Foyer'- supported accomodation. The scheme, Ravenhurst Cottages, supports young people who are unable to stay at home and is still there today. Albeit much improved physically, but I'll get to this later on.

It's difficult to explain just how difficult the process of adjusting is, at first it seems an adventure- it is an adventure- but very quickly the realities of living alone kick in. How do you pay rent? Make more than three or four of your favourite meals? Get shopping with no transport? - that's a pain, let me tell you. And, in the midst of all this you have 30 plus others around you adjusting to and dealing with the same challenges and their own demons who you need to make friends with. Thanks to one of the few actions of social services I was lucky to have found my way there. I know it's cliche to say but the staff really do care. They were always there to support and challenge and offered much needed, almost parenting, initially. 

Becoming homeless isn't a choice many people make but particularly young people may not have developed the skills to live independently that others take for granted. You have to learn very quickly how to manage a home, bills, benefits and how to look after yourself. I spent the days adjusting and the evenings getting to know those around me, starting to make friends and spent the rest of the time feeling pretty low and lonely to be honest. I had family in Birmingham but you don't want to feel like your hanging onto them constantly and so above the support I received the friends I made at Ravenhurst got me through. Friends I am still in contact with 12 years later.

I should explain briefly that accommodation like this is usually available for 6 months to 2 years, and as important as it is at the time there is a constant sense of the fragility of your temporary 'home'. When you move into supported accomodation you are normally given a key worker, who in essence is your access to other support, information and a critical friend for the duration. I was supported by all the staff at the project at some point or another I think but one of my key workers during the two years I lived there really stands out, Dominic. Probably the funniest man I have ever met, although I'm not sure he intends to be sometimes. Just who you need knocking on your door and calling to check your ok when you're having a crap day.

It is because of their support and guidance that I decided this is what I wanted to and the next steps were to find out how. So while I figured it out I went to college to do a 12 week personal development course run by the princes trust and then started volunteering with young people at Fairbridge. Skipping a whole two years of voluntering, and a short stint at the new Debenhams, which helped me get into a lot of debt because of the incredibly high rent costs for supported accommodation, and infancy in money management.  I then moved into a kind of half way house which meant more Independence but support when you needed it. It also helped remove me from 'service user' status so that I could begin volunteering at another supported accommodation scheme run by Trident as I was desperate to get a job there. The job centre weren't too happy about this as I was 'unavailable' for work?! but thankfully my advisor believed this was a genuine attempt to get a job and I signed off after suceeding about two months later. 

Homelessness I found doesn't discriminate, and affects people in so many ways. My time working at Trident started to increase my awareness and experience of working with young people and supporting people through a very difficult period. For the first time I found it an advantage having been through my experiences as I had a level of understanding with the young people I was supporting.  

The beginning

So, I am a 2014 Clore Social Leadership Fellow. Such a priviledge and yet an intimidating responsibility. A big part of the programme is to reflect and in the spirit of this I have started a blog. I do feel that there are so many people I have been fortunate to work with over the years, truly inspiring people, that it begs the question- why me? I guess I'll have to tell you a little about me and you can decide.

I grew up in Birmingham and had a good childhood, which, when followed by my next experience you might question this statement- but it's true. I suffered abuse when I was aged 10 for about a year which resulted in all sorts of emotional issues for me in my early teens, depression, self harming, general rebeliousness until I finally admitted what had happended and then it all changed. At 15 social services removed me from my home, weeks before my GCSEs and helped me move from Wales, where I had been living for two years, back to Birmingham.

I stayed with a relative with alcohol dependency issues in a not so comfortable one bed flat in Birmingham as I was technically 'homeless' until a supported accomodation scheme could take me on a month after my 16th birthday... and then Social services dropped me like a stone. Something I later discovered is all too common for young people in my circumstances.

It wasn't all bad though. My mom helped me stay in a B&B so I could take my G.C.S.E's and despite the circumstances I got on ok. I am very grateful and proud still of managing to stick it out through my exams despite everything else around me being so chaotic.

The organisation that housed me was run at the time by Trident Housing Association, and this is where my life really begins...