Ronnie's Story #HW2019
Aug 05, 2019
‘Ronnie’ was introduced to Whitelion shortly after he had been kicked out of his mother’s house, with her disconnecting from him completely and offering no support or assistance. ‘Ronnie’ was staying at the house of one of our clients whilst trying to get back on his feet. This option became unviable after about 4 weeks when ‘Ronnie’ started feeling the pressure of wanting to contribute to their household financially, but being unable to do so.
In our initial meeting with ‘Ronnie’, we sat down and completed an assessment to identify his support needs, both immediate and long-term, and make a plan of how we could put these into practice. ‘Ronnie’ identified that he needed to create a resume and career plan. ‘Ronnie’ also expressed an interest in going to university while earning survival income through part-time employment. ‘Ronnie’ also stated that in addition to employment support and education, he also felt that he needed a mentor to help him through the tough times as his resilience was fading and he was starting to lose hope.
The most pressing needs in getting ‘Ronnie’ back on his feet were accommodation and employment, so that’s where the main focus on the services we provided him were initially. Firstly, we advocated on ‘Ronnie’s’ behalf to a number of accommodation services, eventually securing him a meeting with MacKillop. Once this interview was secured, we transported ‘Ronnie’ to the interview and followed-up on his behalf.
Following-on from this, we worked on skilling ‘Ronnie’ up to enter the workforce. This included assisting ‘Ronnie’ in putting together a resume, work readiness training and interview preparation. Further on from this, we were able to advocate on behalf of ‘Ronnie’ with one of our partner employers and negotiate on-the-job support to be provided for him, as well as added support to help him through his first two weeks.
To help ‘Ronnie’ not just succeed in the short-term, but carry on that success over a longer period of time, post-support measures have been put in place to assist him. This includes regular check-ins where ‘Ronnie’ can keep us up to date on how he is travelling and whether he has any problems or concerns.
Despite his early trepidation, ‘Ronnie’ has done a fantastic job in securing accommodation, sourcing and maintaining employment and attending university. The transition housing he secured through Mackillop helped him to achieve a balanced workload while gaining financial stability. While it wasn’t an easy road, through hard work and determination ‘Ronnie’ has a bright future.