A Day in the Life of A Shine Mentor - Gate liberation day
It's liberation day for J, I pick her up from the prison gate at 9.30am. We travel to her home town where she meets a friend to get her house key. We have arranged to meet her other support worker at the local Tesco cafe. I support J to call and make a new claim for ESA and PIP, this took a while as she failed security three times before finally getting through she asked for me to speak on her behalf. We then went to the local council office to pick up her community care grant where she received £82 (I supported her to apply for this while she was in custody).
We go to J’s house to find her electric meter has been removed, she is now in panic mode as it's Friday afternoon. I Google the number for her supplier, again she would like me to speak on her behalf, they advise me her meter had been tampered with while she was in custody and they are very reluctant to put a new meter in. After 50 minutes on the phone they finally agree to have a new meter installed on the condition Jenna tops up her meter £10 weekly; J agrees to this. Unfortunately her supplier can't fit the new meter until Wednesday morning, J is now very anxious. She agrees to visit the local housing office to see if they can give her temp accommodation until the new meter is in place, but they can’t help until Monday morning. As a last resort J asks if I can call and ask her dad to help, he finally agrees to let her stay at his house just until Wednesday.
After a very busy day I drop J at her dad's house at 4.25pm, she stated if she hadn't had the support of shine today she wouldn’t have dealt with any of these issues, and instead used drugs. She thanked me for the help. She asks if I can help her tidy her home and go through all the mail she had received whilst in custody, we arrange an appointment first thing Wednesday morning to deal with this.