My situation

HollyG

Hi my name is Holly.  I'm 21 and  non verbal. I've been feeling down for the last few months  and nothing is helping. I left college, which was basically my second home for five years,( I didn't live there, it just felt like home) in July and I'm struggling to find my next chapter.
I work for Barnsley Assistive technology as a volunteer one day a week but the rest of the week I'm just watching the original Waterloo Road and going for walks lol. I miss college loads and I have tried online therapy but it didn't work for me.
Till this week, I had a full time PA but found out that she had lied to me and my mum so we let her go so I'm back to being with my family full time which isn't great for all concerned.
I dread to think how long it will take to get a new PA.
I feel low all the time and I don't know what to do 

Alex_Alumni

Hello @HollyG and thanks for taking the time to post, I'm sorry to hear you've been feeling low lately. Leaving college must have been a big change, it's understandable that you miss it so much. 

What do you do at Barnsley Assistive Technology? Is there any chance of volunteering there for more than one day a week? 

I'm sorry to hear about your former PA that sounds awful. It takes time to build up trust in a relationship, I hope that you're able to recruit a new PA very soon, but I know it's difficult right now. Do you recruit independently, or with help from the council? 

I'm going to be sending you an email a little later today, let us know of it hasn't come through to you. Hopefully we can help support you here on the community, but please let us know if we've missed anything. 

HollyG

Hi Alex, 

Thanks for getting back to me

I'm going to respond to your questions from your email on here too

Exactly, going from going to college and having things to do 5 days a week to only working one day a week is a huge change and college, for me, was so much more than education. It was my social life basically.

yes, I'm going to see my GP tomorrow 

We recruit through Leeds CIL but it's useless. Do you have any tips on this?

I have asked work about doing more hours but they said they don't have enough work for me.

L_Volunteer

I can completely hear the lack of structure you now have at the moment @HollyG and socialising. This sounds really difficult for you but you have done so well to reach out to us. How are you feeling about going to see your GP tomorrow at the moment? Hopefully, you will be able to recruit sooner rather than later.

Would you feel comfortable sharing a little more with us about how it has been useless? With recruitment, in general, I am finding part-time applications are receiving vastly more applications due to people seeking second jobs.

I would like to make sure I hear you as clearly as I can though so we can, hopefully, provide some more targeted tips on this for your situation. Please don't hesitate to let us know if there's anything else we can do to support you. We are all here for you and listening to you 

Alex_Alumni

Hi @HollyG thanks for answering those questions, it's really helpful  

I hope that seeing your GP goes well tomorrow, and they're able to help support you more with your mental health. 

I'm sorry to hear that recruiting a PA through Leeds Centre for Integrated Living isn't going as well as you'd expect. That's very frustrating to hear. When I recruited for a PA at university I used a similar type of organisation where I was based, which was helpful at the time. 

I know that recruiting can be a very difficult process, as the social care sector is massively understaffed and underfunded. Perhaps splitting the role into a job share with part-time hours would attract more people, but I'm aware this might not be ideal. 

And that's a shame, do you think there's any other places locally that you could volunteer with? Or perhaps you could search for remote volunteer roles?

HollyG

absolutely, the care industry is not valued enough.
I would ideally like to get a paid job.

that's really interesting about shared jobs, I will speak to mum about changing the job ad