NO ONE HAS EVER HELPED ME IN MY LIFE LIKE YOU HAVE
“No one has ever helped me in my life like you have.”
Getting a call at 9am on first smoko hearing "It's a great job, my boss is a good bloke he knows my family and cousins" is the best way to start the day and the week.
KR is Murri man who has had a traumatic life starting from turbulent time as a youth culminating in long term substance abuse and incarceration. He came to us experiencing 18 months of homelessness after being released from his last stint in prison. Alot of our participants journey to healing isn't straight forward and easy and KR had some complex needs we needed to work through and ones that will need to be worked on for some time to come but we saw someone who needed support but was willing to do the work and make the changes.
KR disclosed that his long term goal was to re-enter his daughters life in a permanent capacity after she was placed into foster care. We discussed the steps needed to achieve that goal and worked through:
Finding permanent accommodation and a place of safety.
Helping him re-gain his drivers license and identification documents.
Addressing outstanding debt and working through budgeting and personal money management
Support with training due to lower literacy and numeracy requirements
Building resilience and emotional regulation tools.
Assisting KR to find - and purchase - his own vehicle.
With these basic needs addressed, we then began to explore the idea of employment and KR settled on a general hand role buddying up with another First Nations student with Grassroots. KR has been building to these moment for so long and his first day of employment is another step on a long journey of self healing and growth.
While employment is always more than just a job, it means nothing if we don’t first address basic needs and barriers. Band-Aid solutions create only temporary change. Watering the roots and building your foundations creates change and helps address inter-generational barriers and blockers.
KR has put in the work to build his foundations and we couldn’t be prouder to watch him continue to grow from here.