Working as a support worker at Moving On allows me to work with a wide range of young people from a variety of different backgrounds. I work as part of the ‘Intensive support team’, and my case load is usually young males who struggle to, or don’t engage well with our other support workers.
Often this means that the young people I work with do not want to fully engage, but still struggle to manage independent living. Aaron absolutely fell into this category; he came to us after a significant relationship breakdown in the family home; an unfortunately familiar story. Nationally, 45% of young people who become homeless do so because of a relationship breakdown in the family home.
When he first moved in with us, Aaron engaged very poorly with his support worker, and was on his final warning for anti-social behaviour. I took over Aaron’s support, as he was transferred to the intensive support team due to his lack of engagement and anti-social behaviour. It took a long time to build up a relationship with Aaron, and getting him to the point at which he felt comfortable to work with me and the other services involved. Over time things with Aaron improved hugely; His drug and alcohol use was no longer a problem, he went back into formal education and built better relationships with his family.
In the last 8 months of working together I helped facilitate Aaron going back to college to earn his level 2 in English and Maths, saw him train to obtain his CSCS card and start driving lessons. With support during this period, Aaron was able to get a full time job working in groundworks and construction, which is an industry he was really keen on entering.
After starting work, Aaron was able to save some of his income to prepare for ‘moving on’ into independent living. In January of this year (2022) I helped Aaron to apply for his own social housing, and I am delighted to say that Aaron has recently signed for a two bed property and, because of our budgeting work, and his careful financial management, he has saved enough money to get everything he needs for the house to be ready for his move in. It has been a pleasure seeing the huge changes that have happened in Aaron in the last year. This is the success we like to see with our young people. My job isn’t easy, and I often have to support people with very complex needs, but supporting them to get to the point of not just independent living, but thriving, is what really motivates me every day.