This case study covers: Issues for trainees – Being in the wrong job – Dealing with the stress of moving house – Difficulty with benefits – Managing sickness – Unauthorised absence – Establishing a new identity
I had been housed off the streets for approximately two years in various hostels/supported housing and had also been volunteering for one year. I was unsuccessfully applying for various jobs when my peer educator told me about the GROW traineeship pilot that was starting up at Thames Reach.
I liked the idea of supporting others who were going through something which I myself had been through, even though in the long term I wanted to go into policy work. So I applied and started on 3 October 2005. This date was also the day I was scheduled to move out of supported housing and into independent living through the Clearing House.
I had quite an outwardly hard personality when I began at Thames Reach. The person I was hardest on was myself. I thought that in order to be an acceptable person and employee I had to be perfect. Perfect attendance record, perfectly appropriate behaviour at all times, immaculately groomed, never revealing any feelings except ‘happy’, never asking for time off, never verbalising my needs.
I did not know how to allow myself to be an ordinary fallible human being. I became resentful when others did not hold themselves to these same standards, thinking of them as weak just as I thought that having needs myself was a weakness.
The first month went by and it was okay, because we had several ‘homestudy’ days free during the working week. In the second month, we were sent to our placements. Unluckily, my new address was in North West London and my placement was in the South East. Not good.
Five hours a day was spent commuting, work was full time, seven hours per day. I had no electricity or gas. The boiler was broken. The telephone had to be connected. I was required to meet my Tenancy Sustainment worker who was available during working hours only.
My address was unrecognised by the post office, so mail was being returned to sender. My new rent was very high and my flat was band E council tax-wise. My outgoings exceeded my incoming wage before I had even bought food, toiletries and travel. I needed to apply for housing benefit and working credits to make the rent and eat.
All this may ordinarily have been manageable had I been able to ask for the time off I needed to sort out these important home matters. But because I thought it would reflect badly on me, I never requested this time off. I was unable to see that, paradoxically, in order to be strong you have to be vulnerable first.
Those were just the obvious problems. Somewhat more intrinsic was getting used to working, commuting and living alone again. I was trying to find time to attend recovery meetings daily (it never occurred to me to go less often). I hardly got home before ten at night and had to leave home again at six in the morning. I was lonely and life seemed insurmountably hard.
I did not feel that I knew my trainee support network well enough to really confide in them. I was scared of my boss (I’d had bad prior experiences) and thought I would be fired if I revealed even half of what I was feeling. I needed time off to sort out the practicalities of moving but had all my annual leave already booked out for a trip to visit my father abroad which had been arranged prior to starting at Thames Reach. Unpaid leave, considering my fiscal situation, was not an option.
Then one evening (yes, around 10 pm), I came in, sat on my sofa and thought, “If this is life – I don’t want it”. I got up and went to the off-license. The next day I went into work stinking of booze. I went straight to my assigned ‘buddy’ who got my manager and we all agreed that I should not work that day and that I would contact them shortly.
I did not contact work until Thames Reach, through sheer persistence, managed to get me onto the phone after two weeks. I had not contacted them because I figured I was fired anyway, so what was the point?
After talking with the GROW Manager who asked me to come and have a chat, I sobered up and agreed to come into work with the required documentation and to talk about where we were going to go next.
Going back into Thames Reach and facing the GROW Manager was the hardest thing I have ever done. The feeling of shame was without comparison. It felt like I imagined a condemned person feels as they are led to the guillotine. Total powerlessness, hopelessness and humiliation. I was convinced I would never be alright and was sure that I did not deserve to have a good life anyway. I still thought I was going to be fired.
It did not turn out that way.
The GROW manager, to my utter shock, was willing to work with me. We agreed that I would be better suited to work in central services as opposed to support work, as in that first month I had also realised that support work was absolutely not where I wanted to be. In retrospect, I was probably still too close to my homeless experience and still reeling from the shock that homelessness could happen to me – a professional with a degree.
There were no opportunities available at that time in central services for trainees, so one was created as an experiment. Now there are several: one in IT, one in HR, two in Finance.
I took more time off in order to recover my health and straighten my home affairs. I arranged an interest-free loan from my mother in order to be able to make ends meet until such a time as I could earn a living wage. I went in to meet my new manager in Quality Development.
Thames Reach had seen something in me that I was incapable of seeing in myself. However, the shame was an omnipresent cloak of darkness and I coped (again) in the only way I knew how. I wandered off in the middle of the day and went drinking. This, of course, only served to put Thames Reach and me back where we were trying so hard to work away from.
This time I had more back-to-work interviews. It was gruelling. I felt like Clint Eastwood must have felt in the movie “The Gauntlet”. I was being questioned from all sides – but they had to be sure that I was really prepared to put my nose to the grindstone and that I understood that I had run out of chances; that for Thames Reach to be able to work with me, I had to stop running away.
I agreed to go to an Occupational Health Assessment, which I did. Then I was allowed to come back to work part time.
When I was finishing the traineeship, I secured myself a part-time position with a statutory organisation as a Communications Worker and I continued on at Thames Reach as a Relief Worker in the Business Development department.
Things were looking up. I did go off drinking again, but this time I called in and everyone knew where I was. Instead of being away three months, I was only away one month – I would have been back much earlier only I really did get ill and the doctor would not consent to my going back to work. That was the last time, and that was over a year ago.
I am now back at Thames Reach on a permanent contract as a Learning and Development Assistant and have just passed my probationary review. I have applied for a mentor in order to explore my long-term career goals.
After over two years back in the workplace, I finally feel that I am recovering from the shock of my homeless experience and am beginning to believe in myself and my many abilities. I love where I work; I have a large circle of friends and an active social life. I am allowing myself to be me, because being me is actually okay.
Would this have happened without the GROW traineeship? I have no idea. All I can say is that Thames Reach accepted me, taught me and gave me opportunities, and emotional and practical support. In return, I try to do the best job I can.
The traineeships are now harmonised into traineeships for school leavers, people wanting to change sector or careers as well as ex-homeless or homeless people. At last count this year (2007), 11% of our workforce was comprised of people with a history of homelessness, helping single homeless men and women London-wide.
