Steve's Story

I’m a Support Worker at Look Ahead homelessness services and every day I get to see little miracles as people start to make changes to their lives.

Once I was in my customers’ shoes as I lived on the streets for a year when I was dependent on drugs. It wasn’t easy, I began experimenting with drugs at the age of 13 and eventually I lost everything. Life on the streets was tough, I regularly got abused, kicked and spat at. One day I looked at myself in the mirror and said to myself: ‘I can’t do this anymore’. It was the day I started to get my life back.

Before joining Look Ahead I got into recovery at a rehabilitation centre, where I later secured a job and gained a BTEC Level 3 in Health and Social Care, fitting my studies around my day job.

"If you asked me to swap my job for another one I wouldn’t because it’s such a great feeling seeing someone turn their life around right before your eyes"

At Look Ahead it’s not just my qualification that is valued – it’s my lived experience of addiction.

It means that I’m able to lead recovery groups and understand my customers’ experiences but more importantly they can see that recovery is possible because of where I am today.

Look Ahead has invested in my training and I’ve now added first aid, food hygiene and infection control, as well as adult and child safeguarding, to my qualifications.

Of course there are challenges on some days but the rewards of the job far outweigh any difficulties. It’s amazing seeing people turn a corner and - when we support them to move on into their own accommodation- hearing that they’ve got a job or enrolled on a college course.

If you asked me to swap my job for another one I wouldn’t because it’s such a great feeling seeing someone turn their life around right before your eyes. You can’t beat it.