From living in a tent in his father’s garden to sleeping on friends’ sofas, Ethan has had a very unsettled journey in terms of finding a stable place to make his home. After suffering traumatic experiences in his childhood, Ethan has struggled with his emotions and how to manage how he feels within his everyday life.

Ethan reached out to Community Campus as a worried eighteen year old who had no real understanding of how to manage on his own. The housing and support workers at CC87 have now worked with Ethan for nearly two years transitioning him from a large shared property to a single tenancy. Ethan had in the initial stages a distrust of CC87 housing and support workers, borne out of his experience with statutory services who he felt let down by and identified him as, ‘another difficult child’. This meant that building relationships with the CC87 staff was a long process with its ups and downs, however the consistency and dedication to Ethan from the support staff was enough to allow Ethan to let down his barriers he had spent so long building.

The Community Campus staff were able to show to Ethan that regardless of past experiences, if he was able to allow a little trust and combine that with good engagement within support sessions, great working relationships can be formed and this transpired into productive support work and life skills being gained.

When asked about his time with Campus, Ethan states that the positive relationships, support sessions and life skills have allowed Ethan to successfully manage his own home and tenancy.