Mary’s story By the age of 13 Mary had fallen out with her mother, who had alcohol problems, to the extent that she was almost out of control. She was staying out all night on a regular basis (ostensibly visiting friends) and was ‘in with a bad crowd’ of older young people. Looking back on it now, she sees that her relative immaturity and lack of experience allowed her to be drawn into a life of substance misuse (alcohol) that she now finds shocking. She spent most days drunk and often found herself waking up in unfamiliar places with no memory of where she had been or what had been happening to her. In her drunken states she would also often engage in ‘stupid’ activities and at these times her mother would regularly call the police to have her arrested. When she and her mother parted she had no home to go to. Returning to her mother was not a viable option. By this time she had working with her: Social services; Sorted!; Community support Team; InToWin; and a counsellor. Her view of this is that it is too much – too many different people involved. Mary’s opinion of social services and the support they provided her with is scathing – “completely useless”. They initially refused to engage with her. When they finally did, they suggested that she should go and live with a 22 year old young man of her acquaintance, even though he had severe alcohol problems of his own and she would be living alone with him. She had no personal contact or support, even from the allocated support worker. There was no continuity of contact. Staff were frequently unavailable - ‘on leave’ - or were changed so often that she always ended up speaking to someone different. She feels that social services made her problems worse. The staff from the Community Support team of social services were good, however, and met with her and her mum to do some team building work – this was painful at first but helped. Although she had heard about Sorted! by this time, she was not able to make use of their services until she was 16 and therefore had to wait two months. Sorted! were “brilliant”. She saw them twice a week and felt as though she “had a friend to talk to”. She could “just ring up” if she wanted to talk about anything and staff always rang back or came to see her. She was helped with advice about things which concerned her – for example about the weight she had put on as a result of her drinking. Staff helped her to be safe in her everyday life and gave her advice about drugs, etc. without being judgemental about her lifestyle. They listened. They also worked with her mum and helped her to see that her daughter was not a bad girl – they tried to get her mum to understand … and were successful to a large extent. Key things about the work of Sorted! that she felt made the difference were: • • • • • • •
1-to-1 input, unlike social services, where “you get chucked all over the place” listening to her and taking what she said seriously working with her agenda, not theirs treating her with respect – like a real person being a friend being non-judgemental wanting to really help
We spoke about what could be done to prevent other young women having to go through similar experiences to hers. She felt that the problems begin when people are very young. By around 11 or 12 young people – especially girls – are maturing and trying to find their way in the world … trying to sort out who they are and how they should be. Young girls around this age often attracted by the company of young people who are older than them – ‘boys of the same age are too immature’. They therefore can easily get in with people whose behaviour is more adult and who are experimenting with alcohol, other drugs and rebellious behaviour. Mary feels that the work schools do is often misdirected and does not work – it’s often ‘statistics’ about your chances of getting pregnant, or of getting cancer or liver damage. This approach is too remote. The TV advertisements featuring real people, especially when they are identified as parents of a younger person, are effective – she recalls vividly the one about a dad who spoke about wanting to be around for his children but who (the advert says) died shortly afterwards. It’s not too young to be starting this kind of work with ten year olds – this is often the age when things start to go wrong. Mary now has her own house and is studying for nursery nursing at college. She sees her future as positive and her prospects as good.
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