Robert was brought up in foster families and when he moved out of care he started taking drugs and stealing. When he was 19 he was sent to prison, where he met a St Giles Trust peer adviser. He has now gained an NVQ and feels his life is back on track as he has a job placement, giving housing advice and tenancy support.
"When I was aged 8, I was taken into care and placed with a foster family. Later on, the rest of my siblings came to live with me at the foster home. After a while it did not work out so we were moved to another placement, which did not work out either.
I decided to leave foster care and set out on my own. This is when I started to do a lot of crime and this then led me onto doing drugs. By the time I was 16, I had tried most drugs and gradually gained a cocaine addiction. During my last year of school I had a few problems with my family. I continued to hide behind my addictions. After a while I was no longer enjoying cocaine so I started to look for other drugs for a bigger rush. I started to smoke crack. At 17 I was a full-time criminal doing robberies, burglaries and also dealing drugs just to pay for my habit.
As an addict and also a dealer, I smoked my profit and then all
of my capital. I got into trouble with my supplier and messed up
not only my life but also those of my friends and family. In the
end, all the people I cared about disowned me. I was shocked but
could not stop what I was doing. Then the inevitable happened a
month after my 19th birthday - I was remanded in a Young Offenders
Institution for robbery and assault on a police officer. Whilst on
remand I managed to deal with my drug and alcohol addictions and,
although it was hard, I managed to get through it. I began to
realise what I had put my family through.
In jail, a St Giles Trust peer advisor told me how the NVQ helped
him with self-esteem problems and how it could also help me by
using my experience of drink, drugs and the care system to assist
those in similar situations.
I started the NVQ course and was delighted to finally get myself on track. I completed the course in nine months and was placed on the open unit where I could go to work each day. I did several voluntary jobs before I landed myself a job placement giving housing advice and tenancy support.
I built my confidence but it also helped me face my own demons by helping other people with theirs. I could not have done this without the St Giles NVQ Assessor who mentored me through the NVQ and other difficult problems in my life."
One of the recommendations Impetus made to St Giles, upon partnering with them in 2004, was to focus on their peer advisor programme in prisons. Since Impetus has partnered with St Giles they have increased the number of peer advisors trained to NVQ3 from 20 in 2003/4 to 240 in 2008/09. St Giles are now working in many more prisons - 24 - compared to 2 in 2003/4.
Read more about our work with St Giles Trust and other lives being turned around by our tremendous charities and social enterprises.
Thanks to St Giles Trust for providing this story.
"We value the thorough due diligence and regular monitoring of charities that Impetus undertakes and feel confident the portfolio charities will develop significantly as a result of their engagement with Impetus."
Sir Peter Lampl, The Sutton Trust,
Impetus co-investor
