Alumni updates: Gareth’s journey from the revolving door to lived experience leadership
As we launch the first edition of our alumni newsletter, we wanted to share stories from Revolving Doors members about what they’re getting up to now they’ve moved on to the next steps in their journeys. Here’s Gareth’s story:
My journey out of addiction started in 2015. I was trapped in a cycle of prisons and homelessness, and ended up in a coma for two weeks due to my addiction. From there I went into rehab. I really didn’t have much going on and was getting very bored of doing nothing with my life. It got to 2019 and I knew someone who was doing bits of participation work with Revolving Doors. On his Facebook I saw him post a photo of himself outside of the Houses of Parliament and thought to myself: “I want to be involved in something like that”.
I contacted him and was given Revolving Doors’ number; after calling them I was invited along to join a forum. I really enjoyed it and wanted to be more involved in the type of work that they were doing.
Getting involved in projects and forums
From there, I was invited to the next forum and then asked if I wanted to join the lived experience team (LET), before becoming a representative on a project about healthcare in courts alongside another member and joining Revolving Doors’ work on RECONNECT.
Andy gave me a number for Pathways, a homeless inclusion health charity, as he knew I’d been street homeless and thought I’d fit their criteria. After joining them in November 2019, I sat on a panel for their annual conference in March and gave the closing call to action speech. That had a few tears from the audience – including myself! I was then asked if I wanted to do my facilitator training to be able to facilitate meeting and forums with, so I completed that.
Then bam: lockdown happened. I thought that was going to be the end for my participation, but I was so wrong: that was the beginning. Because everything got moved online, work became much easier because we didn’t have to travel into the office every few months, and it seemed like more work was available for us.
The start of the Academy
During lockdown I started to facilitate meetings and forums with other members for revolving doors. As this progressed and I developed my skills, I also started co-delivering training, including facilitator training with two other members who were moving onto the next big things in their own journeys.
Another member, Julian, and I started practicing the content and delivering the content that was already there but wanted to make the content our own. After getting permission to change some of it, we started working with (then Member Coordinator, now Academy Coordinator) Natalia on the content for the training modules.
Ideas about the Academy were starting to grow. Natalia made it her mission to develop this into something at Revolving Doors and created the pilot for this with me, Julian and some other members.
When we delivered it, it was a massive success. People really enjoyed the content and said they learnt a lot, with some of them joining us to create and deliver the next training modules for the next group. When those members graduated, we had a celebration, which for me was the end of my journey with Revolving Doors. I had been there for five years and learned a lot, not only about the justice system but about myself and what I am capable of.
New beginnings and next steps
I was a bit sad it had to come to an end — or so I thought. Andy kept in contact and I was sent job opportunities. At first there wasn’t anything that I felt confident going for, until I was sent something called a Grow Traineeship with the homelessness charity Shelter.
It looked like something I’d be interested in, so I sent off an application form for it and was surprised when I got an email to say I’d been shortlisted for an interview. I attended the interview, and because I’d sat on interview panels with Revolving Doors for new staff, I felt pretty confident and knew how the people doing the interview felt as well. I made sure to prep my answers and questions for them and got a call a few days later offering me the Grow trainee role as a housing rights worker.
I’ve now been in my role since the end of August. My Shelter contract was for 12 months but I was sent a job opportunity from my Grow officer for a lived experience coordinator role at Phoenix Futures starting at the end of November. I was a bit apprehensive at first to apply again, but I thought: why not? So, I sent off my application form and to my surprise I got shortlisted for interview again, went for the interview which went really well and then a few days later got a call offering me the position, where I’m now waiting for my start date.
I thought my story was ending when I finished at Revolving Doors but as you can see from this blog one door begins to close ready for another to open. On to my next chapter!
