Category: Stories

Harry* entered the Feel Well, Work Well programme through a Job Fair held by the local Job Centre. He was unemployed, having finished his degree the year before but since struggled to find the motivation to look for work.  At the time of our first meeting, Harry was also being supported by Door43 with some…

When Ruby came into the Ambitions project, she told us she lacked motivation. She’d been out of work and education for a while and had lost any sense of structure or routine to her day. She hoped that getting back into some form of education or training would provide her with this structure, and that this in…

When I first met Lloyd, he really didn’t want to talk to me. Although he didn’t say this, the one-word answers and avoiding eye contact pretty much gave it away. Lloyd was a Y11 student facing Post 16 options, a situation hundreds of students are currently experiencing across the city. It’s a daunting time when…

It was someone’s mistake at school that led to me being involved with Sheffield Futures. One day, when I was in Year 10, my teacher rushed into the classroom and said, “Kate, pick four friends, it’s the Festival of Debate at the Town Hall today!”. My school had forgotten to organise to send anyone. “Kate,…

After his dad died suddenly during the pandemic, Tamir* was struggling to manage his feelings about his loss, and with support from his school, he agreed to trying some counselling. My first contact with Tamir was over the phone with him and his mum. Tamir didn’t really want to speak with me, though he listened…

I joined Sheffield Futures as a Health and Wellbeing Practitioner. I’d come from another service where I was a Youth Worker. The culture was immediately different. In one of my first All Staff conferences, they did a fake Oscars awards. People voted on things like, ‘Someone who has been really supportive at work’ and the…

Project Apollo was an award-winning, three-year programme, supporting 100 care leavers into education training and employment. Project Apollo was close to my heart because of my own experiences of the care system and as a care leaver. I’ve always wanted to improve the experiences, and challenge the stereotypes of, looked-after children. The project gave care-experienced…

Joseph was in foster care when he joined Project Apollo. He was isolated, suffered with anxiety and had been diagnosed with Autism. He told me that he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his future, but his childhood dream was to be a bus driver. Together, we explored ideas and visited training providers…