Title Two young parents changing behaviour and turning lives around
Funding round 2
A 19 year old mother of a 5 year old boy came to a self esteem class for women. Her boyfriend (19 years) was in and out of prison for petty crime and anti-social behaviour at the time. The mother attended the 6 week course which was laid on by Parenting Fund monies via our project. She benefitted so much from the content of this course that she decided to start making life changes. She chose to attend a further IT course (also funded by project) and with support she put together her own CV as up until this point she had no work experience and was living on benefits. She then realised that she needed to address her habits with cannabis smoking and was signposted towards a 12 week course at the Parenting project around making changes around cannabis use and breaking cycles of behaviour. This client then went on to enrol in college on her NVQ for hairdressing. Her partner (mentioned above) had a notorious profile on the deprived estate that they lived in. He became extremely worried about his girlfriend's change in behaviour. Then he decided to stop drug dealing and criminal activity and managed to get a place on a programme (via the Parenting project) and go into rehab for his heroin abuse. He completed 3 months of rehab and came out and went on to enrol in a plumbing course. When asked what his main motivations for change were both he and his girlfriend were adamant that they are doing it to give their son a better example!!!