Vanessa
My story before and after the Youth at Risk residential
"In May I was offered an opportunity to go on the transformations programme with Youth at Risk I didn’t know anything about the programme but my life had be going so bad it sounded like it could do a lot for me and here is some of the feelings and things I was going through before and what it has done for me since the residential.
Since I was 16 my mum chucked me out of home and I went to live with my eldest brother, I didn’t behave at school so I didn’t do my GCSE’S and was always being sent to different schools. Me and mum never saw eye to eye and my dad wasn’t around so I was always on my own apart from my big brother being there for me and having him to talk to when I felt down and life was shit but then in November my brother committed suicide and that’s when my life got worse. I felt like I was part of his death always putting my problems onto him, I know my brother had issues going on in his head because he couldn’t see his daughter but I was too wrapped up in trying to get my life sorted and making myself feel better I didn’t take the time to listen to him.
My life went downhill when that happened I started taking drugs and drinking getting into fights getting arrested pretty much doing anything to make other people upset to block out my feelings and try and make me feel better when really it was making me a horrible person and somebody that nobody wanted to be friends with. I had some friends still round me, ones that was trying to make me see the light but I never took any notice.
About 5-6 months later I got a phone call from my old key worker at my college, she said she had heard about this programme and asked me to come in to have a chat about it, she said she thinks I would really benefit from it and it would help me with what I had been through in the last year, she said there was a induction day down at connexions to explain a bit more about it, so I went along just to see what it was about. After it was all explained I signed up because sitting through and watching the DVD of the residential things started to click into my head and that was when I knew my life could be better so I took the opportunity. I wanted my life to change I wanted to reach my goals that I had before my brother's death and the falling outs with my mum.
When we arrived at the residential It was nothing like I expected I thought we would go there for 6 days do a little bit of work on our lives and have a laugh, well that didn’t happen. I tried to muck about and when it actually come to me having to stand up and face my problems I didn’t want to do it, the bad side would come out in me the swearing at people being rude, then they said they was gonna send me home because it was what I signed up for and if I wasn’t participating then why was I there? I got the hump and when It was break I went back to my room and I done what I always did, doing something I knew would upset somebody and make me feel a lot better, I put shampoo all in the volunteer's bed, over the picture of her family that she had left to come and spend her time not getting paid out of the kindness of her heart. Tony and the rest of the team decided that I was to go home unless I owned up to it and then they had a chat and gave me another chance, I needed this chance if I wanted my life to change and be a better person, somebody my friends and family will remember me as a nice confident person but to get there I needed to start participating. I had to suffer the consequences for my actions, I was given punishments.
I went to the residential to get over the way I was feeling about my brother's death and how it made me feel and wanted it to change and now I had to do it, so that evening in course room I was asked to stand up and talk about what had gone wrong in my life, as much as I didn’t want to I did it, I totally broke down. After every1 at the residential had got up and said about their problems and what they thought was going wrong the coaches started to help us have an understanding of why we felt the way we felt and that the way we was feeling was not our faults, it all started to make sense and I could feel a lot more better in myself even in the 4 days we had been there, I felt like a whole weight had been lifted of my shoulders.
I began to smile and was a lot more confident to get up in course room and talk about why I was there and put my opinions across. Me and all the other youths had learnt so much about each other in the 6 days, actually seen each other for who we really are and not the face we hide behind, we was more like a family other than a bunch of kids that went on a trip to get our lives sorted.
The residential has changed my life for the better, I no longer feel like I have to hide behind this wall I used to put I up if I feel down, I think back to what they said on the residential and I now have a committed partner who keeps in contact 3 times a week, once a week we meet up and the other by phone calls, text or email, just to make sure I'm getting on ok and that I'm still keeping on track or do I need to talk about anything that is playing on my mind. And once a month we meet up for a follow up session with the other youths from our borough that came on the residential with us and it's like what residential was, just to keep us on form.
The changes I have made since the residential - I have built my relationship back up with my mum, she can see the change in me for the better and is so proud I took that step all by myself, I'm more confident around new people, I'll get up and say what I have to say, I talk to people with a lot more respect and treat people how I want to be treated. I also now take the time out to listen to other people when they feel down and help them, talk to them try to make them see sense of what is going on for them if I can relate to what is going on for them. I have changed in many ways, a lot of people have so much more respect and time for me now than when they did before I went on the residential.
I'm now taking steps to get an apprenticeship on an accountancy course what I always wanted to do and the YAR team have helped me with that by people that work in financial departments to come have chats to help me have a understanding of the business. Also since the residential I have been helping out on the programme, going to colleges and giving talks on how the residential works and what it has done for my life because I think a lot of young adults could benefit from it. This programme is excellent and it certainly changes lives, all I can say is anyone that gets an opportunity to go on this programme grab it with both hands because opportunities like this don’t come around often and if you let one like this pass you by you will be kicking yourself forever, the people on it are fantastic, my life has changed for the better and it wouldn’t of happened without the help from the courseleaders, the coaches and especially my coach and the rest of the Youth at Risk team."
Vanessa was a participant in a Coaching for Communites project, run as part of the Community Transformation Programme
