What Was The Challenge?

14-year-old David and his mother, Sally, were Irish Travellers referred to our support team by David’s school because of David’s repeat anti-social and offending behaviour, including assaulting peers and criminal acts in the local town centre among other incidents. 

Both David and Sally suffered from mental health difficulties, and David was keen to leave school but his mother was determined he would complete his education. The Glow team needed to find a way to help address and end David’s anti-social behaviour and find a way to keep him motivated to stay in the educational system.

How Did Glow Help?

With the help of the Traveller Liaison Service, the Glow team worked to understand the customs and norms of David and Sally’s culture to ensure the support they recommended would work within their daily life. Through this understanding, the Glow team were able to recognise that only female workers would be permitted onto the travel site where they lived, and the team would need to gain advice and support from the wider family to ensure David and Sally remained engaged throughout the process.

The team provided consistent support to David, even when the family briefly moved to North Wales as it was likely that they would return to the area. They quickly identified that David would benefit from a positive male role model, and implemented dual working to ensure female support was adhered to on the traveller site while still providing David access to support from a male worker offsite. David and his mother were encouraged to attend counselling to support their mental health needs, with both David and Sally reporting they were better able to cope. The team worked 1-on-1 with David to understand his concerns and his options for education, and assisted him with creating his own education plan. 

Through the support, it was identified that Sally was illiterate. All support was adapted so reading or writing were not required, and information on reading classes was provided and talked through with her. The team helped David and Sally talk through his educational options and worked with them to find a plan that met everyone’s wishes. Additionally, our team supported Sally to gain Disability Living Allowance to help the family manage financially.   

What Was The Impact?

As a result of our team’s support and David and Sally’s cooperation:

• David remained in education and was placed on a vocational college course
• David joined and participated in an out of school activity
• David had no further incidents of offending or ASB in the 6 months following our support 

 “The staff were never prejudiced. They just wanted to help those who needed it.” – David

What Was The Challenge?

Lloyd was referred to Glow after he and his partner lost custody of their children because of a history of domestic related assault, possession of drugs, theft, burglary and common assault.  

When assessing Lloyd to see if Glow could offer him support, Lloyd felt that he didn’t need to attend our support programme. However, his decision to work with Glow was because he was desperate to have custody of his children again. 

Lloyd told staff at Glow about an incident where he had pushed his partner out of his way, after she had refused to move out of his way. He also denied any further incidents where the police were involved. 

Glow chose to support Lloyd as he was justifying his behaviour and denying any wrong doing. 

How Did Glow Help?

Lloyd’s initial journey had a positive start. He was involved in conversation and spoke about his personal experience of abuse. 

As Lloyd progressed through our programme, he would shift between accepting and taking responsibility for his actions, and being disruptive and blaming his actions on taking drugs at the time.  He also resisted help from social workers and was aggressive to staff. 

Over the course of the programme, Lloyd started to open up about other times he had abused his partner and children, such as leaving them along for days and telling her what she could wear. 

Midway through the course, Lloyd had made significant progress and was able to recognise his abusive tactics and how they had affected his partner and children, and how he could deal with situations that arise. 

What Was The Impact?

As a result of our team’s support:

• Lloyd has improved his behaviour and supported his partner through serious health issues
• Lloyd has built a relationship with his partner
• Lloyd understands what is domestic abuse
• Lloyd has accepted responsibility for his behaviour and expresses remorse for his actions.