Tim* escaped the cycle of homelessness and now he’s ready for a career where he’ll help others break out of the cycle too.

Tim came to Barnabus when he was referred to us by the NHS mental health team. He was receiving support from them and they were concerned that he was struggling to manage his life and was at risk of becoming homeless.

Falling into the cycle

When Tim came to us, it was clear why he was struggling. Despite help from the mental health team he was struggling to manage his ADHD. He struggled to prioritise effectively which led to him leading a chaotic life which only worsened his ADHD symptoms.

He was working hard to keep himself above water. He was working too much. With multiple part time jobs on the go at any one time he struggled to keep juggling so many commitments. He had a history of losing jobs when he became overwhelmed by the workload. This put him at risk of homelessness multiple times.

Unfortunately, Tim was not engaging much with us at this point and found himself becoming homelessness several times. He would work hard to get out of homelessness but never addressed the causes. So he found himself overwhelmed and losing his job before becoming homeless again.

Building a plan

After trying to support Tim whilst he worked, we decided he needed an intervention. We suggested that he leave work and move into one of our supported accommodation houses. Here he wouldn’t need to worry about money for the duration of the 12-24 month stay, he could focus on understanding and managing his ADHD whilst also learning life and employment skills. Fortunately Tim took us up on this offer and moved into our supported accommodation.

Tim spent his days volunteering at a kitchen in a homelessness shelter near the supported accommodation. Tim discovered that he really enjoyed helping others whilst volunteering, he had a lot of empathy for the people coming in as he had been through a lot of their struggles too. Tim wanted to keep growing and learning so he could better support people. He was soon shadowing and then helping support workers at the shelter.

Learning to support others

Tim now wants to become a support worker, he has made it a goal of his to complete a Health and Social Care course so that he can make a career in support work. So that he can help others who struggled as he did. We have helped him to start a Health and Social Care course and he is completing that whilst staying in our supported accommodation.

Tim has continued to work with the mental health team throughout his time with us, he has regular meetings with an ADHD specialist and is now on the correct medication and handling his condition really well. He also started going to counselling to work through how he fells about his past struggles and recover from them.

Tim will be in our supported accommodation for another 6 months to a year whilst he completes his learning, recovery and training. When he leaves he will have had a great opportunity to learn how to manage his life more effectively. 

Tim was able to benefit from our supported accommodation, by having a pause in his frantic life he found a calling in support work. The support plan also gives him the chance to develop skills and the time for training to work towards a new career.

Tim has been a pleasure to support and we are really excited to see where his journey ends up taking him. Together we have not only prevented him becoming homeless but have helped him to achieve much more from his life and soon he will be supporting others, helping them to escape homelessness as he did.

*name changed to protect our friends identity