I have been in my role as a support worker at Simon on the Streets for over 3 years now. I have worked intensively with some of my service users over this period and have established good relationships with many of them; I’ve learnt about their likes, their histories, their families and their favourite Greggs pasty fillings. I’ve found through having these relationships it has given me insight into individual behaviours and enabled me to find ways of supporting people to understand themselves better.
Today, however, I have been reminded of the significance of being in the right place at the right time to simply listen to somebody who I know very little about. A person who feels desperate and just wants somebody to share their frustrations with; the typical person I might encounter on a street outreach session.
I was heading to an appointment, when I heard what I considered to be a barrage of rather aggressively rude “Oi’s” directed towards me and noticed somebody waving at me from across the road. I recognised the male as Steven, who I’ve never had a great deal of contact with, but it seemed he recognised me as a Simon on the Streets worker and wanted to talk. As I walked over to see him, he immediately apologised for not knowing my name and explained that his head was all over the place. I told him that was not a problem, and sat by him on the wall where he was already settled. I asked him how he was doing and he told me things were “shit”. He seemed keen to talk and went on to tell me how bad things were; his health had recently deteriorated rapidly and he’d just been kicked out of the property where he’d been staying. He began to cry and it was obvious just how desperate he was.
He continued to talk through his tears and told me how there would now be a warrant out for his arrest as he was in breach of his bail conditions for not staying at the property. He told me how he desperately wanted to go back to prison, having only being released a few weeks ago, as straight after his release he had fallen back in with the same crowd and returned to heroin use and the chaos that comes with it. Still crying, he talked about his frustrations of being repeatedly put on to community drug treatment orders that he said he always ended up breaching because he was currently unable to manage his life in the community. On one hand he knew the people he was associating with weren’t good for him, but on the other hand, they were part of a familiar lifestyle he has always known.
Steven seemed to genuinely believe that prison would be his only chance of moving forward which is a worryingly common belief amongst our service users. In prison Steven would get his health needs met along with the opportunity to detox and somewhere more comfortable to sleep then he currently has. Steven like many of our service users is unable to meet the requirements of many community support services; in which he is likely to receive sanctions for non-attendance or challenging behaviours. It’s frustrating as a worker to think that it’s the very things such as his non-attendance and challenging behaviour that are perceived as being a barrier to support, instead of being recognised as the very reason why he needs such support.
It would have been quite easy for me to ignore Steven’s barrage of “oi’s” and not respond to his aggressive shouts. After all who wants to be spoken to in such a manner? However, I’m very much aware this behaviour is the outermost surface of another human being with much more potential than his social skills present. Also, if I’d have ignored the shouts I would never have received the warmest, most sincere and genuine gratitude I did, just because I listened.
Hayley, support Worker
We take the view that when someone chooses to tell us their problems they are not necessarily looking for us to give them a solution. In many cases people simply want to offload. By respecting them and not treating them as incapable of dealing with their issues by jumping in and offering solutions we build trust. It is ultimately a high level trusting relationship that will be crucial in supporting an individual to effectively make sustainable positive changes in their life; rather than list some actions which might not be right in the here and now for various reasons.