I interviewed a young female from Mayday Trust Broadmead
Court to ask her about what impacts and achievements are important to her.
Emma is 27yrs old and is currently living in Broadmead Court
supported living run by Mayday Trust. She has been living there for just over 2
years and came to Mayday following a mental health relapse. When Emma came to
Broadmead she hoped to get support with maintaining and increasing her
independence along with developing basic life skills and possibly returning to
education, with the ambition of getting employment.
Before Emma came to Broadmead she was living in a small
village with her Father and Stepmother where she felt quite stable in regards
to accommodation but felt like she needed to move out and into her own place.
She had never been employed and had little education.
When Emma arrived at Broadmead Court she was welcomed and
shown around the area. She was offered support in the areas she felt she needed
help with and was encouraged to do things to help towards her future. Emma
explained that she felt that the staff at Broadmead Court were very supportive,
encouraged her a lot and were positive about the choices she had made. “The
staff members were there to talk to when I needed to and they wanted to help me
do what I wanted to do.”
I asked Emma what goals she had for the future that were
personal to her and she told me that she would like to work at a local hospice
helping terminally ill people to fulfil their last wishes. Emma wants to do
this as she lost her granddad when she was younger and thinks that the idea of
helping someone to fulfil their dreams before they pass away is “amazing and I want
to be part of it.” Emma knows that in order to achieve this she needs to
complete some relevant courses at college with the support of the staff at
Mayday Trust and is feeling very positive about this as she has already achieved
Entry Level 1 in Maths and is currently attending an Entry Level 3 in English
course. Emma has a great support network including friends, family and
professionals to help her in achieving her goals.
Emma told me about some of her hobbies and how she would
like to use these interests in achieving future goals. Emma enjoys reading and
writing, computer games and also spending time with her Nan and helping her out
with gardening or household tasks. With these interests she would like to write
a book about her experiences in life to help other people who suffer or people
who know someone be it a friend or family member who has mental health
illnesses understand it better. She stated that she would like the book to be
based around self harm and recovery as she can see that she has come such a
long way in the past 3 years and would like to help other people to understand
the reasoning for self harming and how to deal with it or how to find alternative
methods.
Previous achievements that Emma told me about included working
in a day care centre as a volunteer where she supported people over the age of
50 to join in with activities within the centre. Emma told me how she
thoroughly enjoyed this and would like to return to do this again in the near
future. The goals of working in the local hospice supporting people to fulfil
their last wishes and writing a book Emma has put a time frame of 2 years to
have achieved this by however she also stated that if she was able to achieve
just one of her goals within that period of time she would be very happy.
In the not so distant future Emma is planning with her key
worker to move on into her own accommodation with floating support. Emma is very
positive when she thinks about her future and is thankful to Mayday Trust for
all of the support and encouragement she has received from them. Mayday has had
a great impact on Emma’s life and she said that she would recommend Mayday
Trust to others who are in a similar situation as she was in before Mayday came
and “saved my life”.
Interview by Fiona McCance - Mayday Reporter & Intrepid
Explorer- 4th May 2013
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