Sam's story
From a 17 year old girl, to a mum supporting a family. Sam has been on a long journey, and Home-Start has been with her all the way...
In 2000, Sam was a 17 year old teenager struggling to cope with her personal circumstances. She left home and was housed in a social services supported housing scheme. She didn’t know what to do with her life, and realising that she needed a focus and to ‘stay out of trouble’ her social worker encouraged her to join the Millennium Volunteering programme.
Millennium Volunteers is part of a UK- wide initiative designed to promote and recognise volunteering among young people aged 16 – 25. They have to complete 200 hours of volunteering to gain their volunteering certificate. Her local volunteer bureau told her about Home-Start.
Sam decided to give it a go and began volunteering for Home-Start Cwm Ryhmni’s family groups. Sam loved it, and realised that ultimately she wanted to work with children.
When Sam was 20, she was re-housed out of the area and became pregnant herself. After the birth of her little girl, Megan, Sam started suffering from feelings of loneliness and isolation, she turned to her health visitor for help.
As luck would have it, Sam’s health visitor referred her to Home-Start, the very same branch of the charity that she had volunteered at three years before. Sam was surprised, she hadn’t realised the family groups were still running. She began to attend Home-Start Cwm Rhymni’s vulnerable parents group, and for two years Sam and Megan attended the group for support, emotional help and encouragement.
When Megan reached school age, Sam realized that she wanted to give something back to the charity that helped her so much.
She was struggling to find work, has time on her hands and decided to put it to good use. Now that she had parenting experience herself, Sam decided to become a home-visiting volunteer as well as helping at the group Home-Start Cwm Rhymni was running.
Back in 2010, Sam attended the volunteer training course and was then matched to her first Home-Start family. A year on and Sam is still supporting Sarah and her three children.
Sarah was struggling to cope with illness and three children under five,
So she turned to Home-Start. Now Sam visits Sarah once a week at home, offering emotional and practical support; they sort out paper work, do the shopping, and talk about issues that Sarah might be worried about.
People have asked Sam why she volunteers her time for free, she says it’s because she gets so much out of the experience, it’s such a worthwhile thing to do.
Sam has come a long way since her first contact with Home-Start Cwm Rhymni, overcoming many obstacles to become the mum that she is today.From a 17 year old girl to a mum supporting a family, Sam has been on a long journey. And Home-Start has been with her all the way.
