Ex-offender case study - Robert

When I was aged 8, I was taken into care and placed with a foster family. Later on, the rest of my siblings came to live with me at the foster home. After a while it did not work out so we were moved to another placement, which did not work out either.

I decided to leave foster care and set out on my own. This is when I started to do alot of crime and this then led me onto doing drugs. By the time I was 16, I had tried most drugs and gradually gained a cocaine addiction. During my last year of school I had a few problems with my family. I continued to hide behind my addictions. After a while I was no longer enjoying cocaine so I started to look for other drugs for a bigger rush. I started to smoke crack. At 17 I was a full-time criminal doing robberies, burglaries and also dealing drugs just to pay for my habit.

As an addict and also a dealer, I smoked my profit and then all of my capital. I got into trouble with my supplier and messed up not only my life but also those of my friends and family. In the end, all the people I cared about disowned me. I was shocked but could not stop what I was doing. Then the inevitable happened a month after my 19th birthday - I was remanded in a Young Offenders Institution for robbery and assault on a police officer. Whilst on remand I managed to deal with my drug and alcohol addictions and, although it was hard, I managed to get through it. I began to realise what I had put my family through.

In jail, a St Giles Trust peer advisor told me how the NVQ helped him with self-esteem problems and how it could also help me by using my experience of drink, drugs and the care system to assist those in similar situations.

I started the NVQ course and was delighted to finally get myself on track. I completed the course in 9 months and was placed on the open unit where I could go to work each day. I did several voluntary jobs before I landed myself a job placement giving housing advice and tenancy support.

I built my confidence but also it help me face my own demons by helping other people with theirs. I could not have done this without the St Giles NVQ Assessor who mentored me through the NVQ and other difficult problems in my life.