Celebrating the Starfish

Did you ever hear the story of 'The Girl and the Starfish'?

"One day, a young girl arrived at an empty beach on a sunny day. She was shocked to see hundreds of starfish had been washed up on the sand and were dying on the beach. The little girl spent the rest of the day scooping up the starfish and throwing them back into the sea, but more kept on washing up on the sand.

A man arrived at the beach, he watched the girl for a while and then said: "why are you bothering? You're not making any difference, there are still loads of starfish on the beach" The girl said "if I make a difference to the life of just one starfish, then it will be worth it".

And that is the story on which I based my charity.

For those who know me well, you'll know that my charity was set up to provide housing and housing related support to people with learning disabilities, autism and mental health issues who were homeless or vulnerably housed. I felt that people with additional support needs were locked out of the private rented sector, for reasons such as being on benefits or being 'different' and therefore assumed to be bad tenants.

During my time with Hollywell I met some incredible, inspiring people who had fought their entire lives for the basic opportunities that you and I take for granted. I met so many brilliant people who grew and thrived with their own tenancy in their own home.

One of these people was *Billy. Billy was referred to Hollywell by Probation - he had a brain injury and had fallen in with the wrong crowd. He thought he was 'one of the lads' but in fact he was being exploited by a criminal gang and he eventually became addicted to heroin, made some bad choices and went to prison. When Billy came out of custody he was homeless, angry and determined to lash out at everyone who tried to help him. He had lost access to his baby daughter, something that he was not dealing with well - due to his brain injury Billy did not know how to properly manage his anger and it often exploded in unacceptable ways.

We moved Billy into his own flat in South Devon, it was a beautiful place in a lovely old building. However Billy did nothing but complain - he broke things, made too much noise and resisted the input of his Housing & Welfare Officer. This eventually reached a head when he physically threatened her. We reached the point where I had to make it clear to Billy that he was going to be asked to leave the flat unless he signed up to a 'Conduct Agreement', which we would support him to maintain.

To be completely honest, I fully expected Billy to rip the agreement to pieces and continue his destructive behaviour, but to my (and my teams'!) surprise he really committed to the agreement and kept to every requirement.

As Hollywell grew, I had less and less contact with my tenants as my team got larger and the operational work moved to others. I had reports that Billy was seeing his daughter again, that he was engaged with statutory services and he was no longer taking methadone.

A couple of years later I decided to make a visit to a few of my tenants to see how they were getting on - Billy was on my list.

When I arrived and Billy answered the door, I was immediately taken aback - he was clean, his clothes were neat and he had a big smile on his face. He showed me in and I immediately noticed that the walls were papered with pictures that his little girl had drawn for him - he was seeing her every weekend and was even having her for odd days on his own. He couldn't stop talking about her! He also showed me photos from his volunteer job refinishing furniture - he said he was refurbishing a toy box for his daughter. When I first met Billy he was pretty monosyllabic, he couldn't hold attention for a conversation of more than a minute and he would not make eye contact. This was a totally different man.

I'm not ashamed to say that I went back to my car and cried. Over the course of Hollywell we housed 180 people - some tenancies succeeded, some failed but Billy was a perfect example of what a safe home, the right support and perseverance could do to change a person's life. His story epitomised what I set Hollywell up to achieve.

He was my Starfish.

So remember, sometimes your work will go unnoticed, sometimes people will question why you bother, but just one Starfish makes all the difference and will remind you why you go through everything a charity CEO has to go through to make the difference you want to make.

Keep focussing on those Starfish - they are what it's really all about!