Sticking in is the one area of a very adapted, people pleasing life where I have never adapted. An act of brave fuckery. I have always very quietly disregarded any procedures which said that I should close some one's case if they did not respond to 3 agency appointment letters. Whether that be to close a case or return an order to court. Because we are working with people at often the most challenging time of their lives, when they are overwhelmed and do not have their shit together.
Most managers recognised this and tended to allocate me to work with the hard to reach individuals. Like Jane, who had been diagnosed with Diogenes syndrome, described as a disorder characterised by extreme self-neglect and domestic squalor domestic. Jane had literally thousands of plastic bags and other assorted rubbish in her house and refused to let anyone in. She was being threatened with eviction. No furniture, just plastic bags filling every room, barely allowing the doors to close.
Jane chose to mostly sleep rough in the city centre under a bridge where she fed the pigeons. I just kept going to her house every week and leaving a handwritten letter through her door. One week, she was in. And she had flu. Horrible flu which meant she could barely get off the couch. She knew me because of the letters and let me call the doctor for her.
It took another several months before Jane would let me get help to get the house sorted out and apply for a community care grant to get a washing machine, carpets and bed. During that time, Jane told me her story. She had lost her son when he was young and had struggled to want to call any where home without him. I am not convinced that Jane ever really stayed back in that house as she preferred the pigeons in the city centre, however it stopped her being evicted when she did want a home. #socialworkstories #thepowerofstorytelling #braveasfuck.
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