Peter has been coming to the Camrose Centre for 18 months. He lives alone, doesn’t have many friends and is very quiet. Owing to a traumatic childhood Peter has a heroin addiction and trusts very few people. His mental health is poor and he suffers with some physical ailments too. Peter very much keeps to himself, largely sitting outside the centre with a coffee. He’s found it very hard to seek support due to being let down by agencies in the past.
Camrose support workers have worked hard to build a relationship with Peter. It’s been a slow process, talking to him at regular intervals for short periods of time so as not to overwhelm him, finally Peter agreed to let us work with him.
Through these interactions we found out that Peter had several debts for which he was being hounded and he wasn’t claiming all the benefits he may be entitled to. On top of this Peter couldn’t read or write and his understanding is limited. Peter just didn’t answer calls, texts or read any letters sent to him. He agreed to whatever he was told as thought it would “make the problem go away”.
As support workers at Camrose, we understand that seeking and accepting support can make the client feel vulnerable by telling tell us things they struggle with and the support they need. Often the process involves talking about painful memories and sharing difficult pasts. It’s a privilege for a client to trust us enough to open up and to know it won’t be shared inappropriately. We never take this for granted.
So far in the last four months we have been successful is sorting out benefits and Peter has been referred to a local charity, Money Lifeline, who have agreed to help him with his debt. This means he will no longer be hounded and his debt will be manageable.
This is of course a great outcome in terms of Peter’s financial situation. The next step is to help him access any services to support with his physical health and his home environment.
What has been most rewarding has been to see Peter come to the centre more regularly and that he purposely seeks us out to say hello. He updates us with his situation. Camrose is the place that Peter will comfortably come to seek support at this point in time as he trusts us to help him move forward.
This is a great achievement in helping Peter so far and we are looking forward to completing more work with him in the coming months.
By Charlotte Powell
