Name: Charlie
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Age: 27
Charlie first came to Salford Dadz – Little Hulton in March of 2016 after being signposted to us by his health worker. Charlie had been told to leave the family home by his ex partner and was not allowed to see his daughter. He was living in his car which, according to the local council, meant that he had a roof over his head and was therefore not homeless. This meant that help with housing was not available and unfortunately
this also meant that access to his daughter was made even more difficult as he had nowhere suitable to look after her. Charlie was out of work at the time due to loosing it because of his mental state.
Charlie managed to get limited access to his daughter and started to come to our Saturday Dadz and Kidz club as a way of seeing his daughter in a safe environment, his social workers supported this. Charlie was suffering from depression and anxiety, access to his daughter was very important to him as she was a high point in his life and a reason to carry on. Charlie always appeared to be a doting father and the general feeling was that he would do anything for his child.
Salford Dadz – Little Hulton were able to help Charlie in a number of ways, the support given by other members helped Charlie to get through the tough times he was facing and he learnt new methods of coping. We helped him to focus on his daughter when speaking to his ex partner about access issues and helped him concentrate on what was good for his child rather than letting emotions take control and allowing discussions to descend into arguments, with the expected results.
He got the chance to get a flat in Salford from one of the local charities and we were able to support him with a general reference which went some way to assisting him in gaining a flat, even if it were outside of Little Hulton. Charlie had lost his car due to money problems so members of Salford Dadz – Little Hulton helped him by picking him and his daughter up so that they could continue to come to the Dadz and Kidz club when he was able to.
Charlie was eventually re-housed by the council after his social workers became concerned about the level of drug use in surrounding flats, this enabled Charlie to move closer to the family home and made access to his daughter that much easier. He was also given full access to his daughter with no restrictions which made life a lot easier and removed much of the stress related to this.
Charlie attributes much to Salford Dadz – Little Hulton saying that he doesn’t think he would have got through the things he was experiencing with out their support, the fact that he could contact one of the members whenever he needed to chat and gain support was very important to him. He also knows that the advice given to him helped a lot, changing conversations away from arguments and focusing on his child got him a lot further.