Impact Living Case Study
Ian is 19 years old and comes from a large family (seven brothers and three sisters, ranging in age from nine months to 22 years old).
Ian says it was hard growing up as there were so many kids fighting for affection all the time. This caused lots of arguments and on many occasion, physical fights. Ian says it must have been really hard for his mum as she was bringing them all up by herself and is sure that they must have all driven her up the wall.
Ian never knew his dad so he became really close to his mum and helped with the children, and still does. Family is very important to him. He feels that his relationship with his mum now is good but hectic.
Ian looks back on his past and says that he fell in with the wrong crowd and made choices that affected him for a long time. He enjoyed getting drunk, taking drugs, stealing cars and beating people up. It was around this time that Ian decided to drop out of school and get a job, at which point he located his older sister who happened to live in Impact accommodation.
Although still doing his ‘usual thing', Ian started visiting his sister regularly and became a familiar face around Impact. He bumped into Nigel Delaney and Michael Doran and as a result started to volunteer for Impact's maintenance team. He believes this was done to get him out of the drug scene and while he admits that he had ‘little lapses', he also began to realise just how much he stood to lose.
Ian got his own flat in Impact and then applied for a full time position in the maintenance team. He says that he now feels he can achieve anything he wants and has recently attended college and passed a plumbing in the home course. He is keen to take more courses and gain qualifications and more importantly, feels he now has the confidence to do this.
Ian says that sometimes he can't quite believe just how much his life has changed. He feels that his quality of life has ‘gone through the roof' because of Impact and the people he has met as a result.
Asked what he would say to young people who are stuck in similar situations, Ian has this advice to offer “Stop doing what you're doing and realise that the things you want that are good can be achieved, if you set your mind to it and have the right kind of support”.
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