Our Stories: Rachel
Rachel has faced a lot of personal challenges in her life – homelessness, a spell in prison, drug addiction and became pregnant as a teenager.
Her oldest son has also faced homelessness and drug issues and her youngest has Sensory Processing Disorder and Autism which means that his behaviour can be hard to manage at times. Before taking part in the Foundation’s Family Learning and Back in the Game programmes she hadn’t had a job interview in 10 years.
It’s fair to say her self-confidence, motivation and self-esteem were low when she first started with us.
It hasn’t been an easy journey for Rachel on our programmes – from lacking education or support to moving into that type of environment can be very challenging and at times frustrating.
However, she was determined to spend quality time with her youngest two children and steadily made progress on the course to great effect.
Her confidence and health have improved greatly as well as her family life – she has quit smoking and she now swims regularly with her daughter. Her youngest son has taken up boxing which has had a marked improvement on his behaviour and she helps out at the boxing club giving her more quality time with her son.
From being unmotivated to work she impressed during a work placement to the point where she now volunteers whilst looking for full time work.
In our opinion, Rachel Mawson is a complete inspiration to anyone who may be facing similar issues, or has done in the past. She is a great example of someone who has not allowed adverse situations to mold her future. She has proactively sought to overcome these issues, and improve the life of herself and her family.
