Stories
Alf’s Story
“It’s quite odd how much Improving Lives have affected my life.”
We take that as a compliment
Alf is a 67 yr old man who has been supported by our service since January 2018, when he was referred to us from Secondary Mental Health Services. He has longstanding, complex mental health issues, including hearing voices, anxiety and clinical depression, arising from a sustained period of trauma and abuse, as a child.
He also has a number of serious physical health issues: he’s had a stroke, he has arthritis and diabetes as well as other long term conditions which all limit his mobility and adversely affect all aspects of his daily life.
His addiction provided him with the only respite to his auditory hallucinations and he initially took great comfort in this. However, as his addiction worsened, he lost whatever savings he had and had serious debts which also impacted on his mental health.
His support worker, Paul, had offered both emotional and practical support to ensure that his physical and mental health needs are met. This has predominantly been around helping him to prioritise all of his physical and mental health appointments, managing his intense isolation and tackling a long standing addiction to gambling.
When we first met him was in danger of losing his home so the priority was to complete a debt relief order application and help him to engage with a counselling agency specialising in gambling addiction, as well as agencies such as Gamstop, which helped to eradicate the online targeting from the various gambling companies that were negatively affecting his life.
To Alf’s credit and dogged determination, he grasped all the support he was given and put a stop to his gambling. The support from Improving Lives has made a huge difference to Alf’s life and he is now back to enjoying simple every day things like visiting family nearby.
“I can sleep at night, I am not so worried and scared in the head, a lot of mental relief, it’s been a total de-stress”.
As time has gone by Alf has needed less practical one to one support and since October 2020 he has had weekly contact with a volunteer who he either speaks to over Zoom or they meet in the community, of whom he said:
“Waseem is a genuinely nice young man, who wants to help people with their problems.”
Having the weekly contact whilst knowing that if there is a problem he can access further support if needed is important to Alf.
“I do not like people, but Paul kept chipping away, like you do at a brick wall, and he grows on you, and before you know it there is a rapport going on.
Paul has an exceptional talent for diversity, he can sort anything out, rent, health, council tax, and if he can’t, he knows someone that can.”