One of our support workers M, has celebrated her one year anniversary with Simon on the Streets this week. As she reflects on her last year, M reveals just how much she has learnt about the people that we support and why they have been unable to ‘fit in’ to society and why they end up living rough lives.
‘It’s one year since I wrote my first ever case study as a new Support Worker. I’m amazed at how quickly that year has passed, and at how much I have seen in that year.
If I remember rightly, my first case study was about how much my eyes had been opened to the true extent of the issues our clients face, and how I felt that in that first month, I’d seen enough to realise that there was so much more to this role and to the lives of our clients than I ever could have appreciated as an outreach volunteer before I progressed to the role of full time support worker. It’s true to say that nothing has changed; I think you could do this job for 10 years and still you would have moments or days where you hear something or experience something that completely knocks you sideways, such are the lives that our clients lead.
I’m sure that some of my friends and family would tell you that since starting this job, my social and political beliefs have changed massively, and maybe the more cynical amongst them would tell you that I’ve become a bit of an idealist, or, as my son once described me, “a total commie Marxist”! Maybe I have, maybe my views aren’t as balanced as they once were, but I would challenge anyone to do this job, then sit there and talk in a logical, structured way about how people’s lives should be led and how those who need support should be supported. The difference for me now is that at one time it seemed logical to talk about strategies for a group of people, but I now know that we are not talking about groups or communities, we are talking about individuals. When we talk about social or political policies, we automatically assume that every person within the group or community we are discussing has the same starting position. If this job has taught me one thing, it is that this is simply not true, and by implementing strategies or services that apply across the board for an entire community, some people are short-changed. We take very basic things for granted such as the experience of growing up in a household where you receive care, nourishment, emotional support, and the opportunity to learn life skills that most of us just absorb automatically by observing our environments. If you have not had the benefit of these things, you then go on to struggle in a society that is set up with the assumption that all people have had these things, and for those who have not, life is extremely hard. This results in a society where there are services and provisions that some people are able to access and utilise, and others are not. Society is not a level playing field, and this is especially true for our clients.
During my time here, I have met people who cannot read or write. Most people would think the days of illiteracy in the developed world went out with the Victorians, but I assure you the issue is still very much alive and well and living in West Yorkshire. I have met people who are rough sleeping because they do not know anything about managing money, paying bills or managing a tenancy. I don’t just mean they are not very good at it, I mean they literally know nothing about what it takes to have a home. I have met people who see abuse as a positive thing and gravitate towards it, because that was the only emotional response they got from a person as a child, so their frame of reference for emotional conduct is so warped that they see it as normal and comforting. I lose count of the number of times I have spoken with a client who makes a passing comment about drug addiction being a normal part of everyday life, because “everybody does it”, and indeed, every person they have ever known has done it. One of the saddest things I’ve encountered is people who are resigned to the fact that their life expectancy is in their 40’s if they’re lucky, because they know and have seen that people who live their kind of life die at that age, so they have no concept of planning for a future, because in their eyes, there isn’t one.
So, when we talk about strategies such as ensuring that every rough sleeper is provided with local authority housing, or steps to encourage people into vocational education and qualifications, you can maybe see why my views have become a bit more flowery and idealistic than they once were. Whilst it’s a great idea to want to support people to have a home and have means of finding a job they enjoy that provides financial stability, I can now see that these sweeping policies, whilst they work for the majority, actually serve to hinder our client group, which ultimately leads to them being blamed and penalised for not helping themselves, which in turn tends to serve as a reason for barring them from the services that they need the most. How can a person help themselves if they aren’t equipped with the tools to do that from the start?
For me, this is one of my biggest motivating factors now for wanting to carry on in this role and do the best job I can. For those people who can’t fit into the system because they have so many barriers in their way, we need to support them to overcome those issues and look for ways to address people’s emotional trauma and their perspective on life before we can even begin to look at the obvious issues such as housing, health and employment.
My friends can carry on calling me lefty, idealist, and any other light-hearted names they wish to attribute to me. There’s no criticism there and it’s all in good fun, but it says something if my perspective can shift so largely that my friends are able to observe it, and I can tell you now that every bit of it is due to things I’ve seen and heard in this job. I will carry on being idealist, because a sound policy is all good and well, but when I’m sat with a vulnerable client who can’t access the provisions of a policy because of their disadvantage, and I hear about the heartbreaking impact that has on a persons life, I will pick person centred approach, and yes maybe idealism, over policy any day of the week.’