Benji re-ignited the fire I had

Social issues like relationships, where you live and what your job is like can all have profound effects on your mental wellbeing.  And that is why mental health social work can be so transformational.

Here Richard*, who experiences paranoid schizophrenia, and Benji, a Think Ahead social worker, share their experiences of working together.

*Richard’s name has been changed to protect his identity.

Richard’s story

“I’ve been experiencing paranoid schizophrenia for over 10 years. There have been times when I’ve been really unwell – I’ve experienced auditory and visual hallucinations, which means I see things and hear voices that other people would say are not there.

I also experience paranoia, which means I’ve had a lot of fear and have struggled to trust people that I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to accept a drink from someone, or eat at someone’s house,  for example for fear of being poisoned. Since my diagnosis I have been given medication, which has helped a bit, and over the years I have received support from professionals including a psychologist, social workers and key workers.

I first met Benji when I told my psychologist that I was being harassed by a person who kept turning up at my house. I had contacted the police, but they weren’t doing much to help, and it was causing me a lot of anxiety. My psychologist raised a concern with her team manager, who arranged for Benji to meet with me. He was really open minded and didn’t make judgments, so I felt I could trust him.

Benji looked into my situation in detail, and produced a safeguarding report that he presented to the police. It made them actually take the situation seriously, and he was really persistent with getting them to stick to what they needed to do. As a result, the police finally got the person to leave me alone.

Social workers should know how important they are. They can make a massive difference in someone’s life – it was only a social worker who could have helped me with the harassment.

It was a really big change for me. The harassment had been going on for a long time, so it was great to finally feel like someone was going to help.

Since then we’ve continued to work together, and now that I’m not worrying about the harassment anymore, Benji has encouraged me to focus on my future and my goals. He’s re-ignited the fire I had.

In the future, I want to be able to educate other people about schizophrenia and support others who are experiencing it. I want to help others to take back control of their own lives, to value themselves, and learn how to live with their illness. I’ve also been studying a nutritional therapy course, so I can help people to understand how nutrition affects mental health. I feel ambitious and optimistic about the future.

Benji is by far the best social worker I’ve had. His person-centred approach has been really important to me, and I would like to see more professionals taking this approach, because it’s a holistic way of working, it gives back control to service users, and makes people value themselves.”

Benji’s story

“When I first met Richard, I could see he was in a situation that was causing him a lot of distress. I took the lead on a safeguarding inquiry into the harassment in liaison with the local police, and other professionals involved in Richard’s care. I was really pleased when the police accepted my recommendations and took greater action. It was a huge relief for Richard, especially as it had been going on for a long period of time, and marked the end of a particularly negative chapter in his life.

After that issue was resolved, I continued to visit Richard, initially providing him with a safe space to discuss and make sense of his experience and supported him in managing the mixed emotions he was feeling towards the person who’d harassed him.

Coming through the other side of this ordeal, Richard’s confidence has grown significantly, and, because he no longer spends much of his time consumed by the worry of harassment, he is now motivated to look to the future and focus on his recovery from mental illness.

Whilst working with Richard, I’ve always embraced a person-centred approach: together we identify what his goals and future aspirations are, and develop a plan towards him achieving them.

These include him sharing his experiences of schizophrenia and mental health services for the benefit of others, exploring educational opportunities involving holistic approaches to managing his schizophrenia (e.g. nutrition therapy), and accessing the gym in order to take better care of his physical health. Richard has been working towards these goals really productively and has been using community resources and opportunities effectively in the process, which has made a really noticeable difference in his wellbeing.

In addition to his short term goals, I encourage Richard to “think big” with what he wants to achieve in the long run. When he’s felt something is unachievable, we’ve used cognitive behavioural therapy techniques, to help him to look at the situation from a different perspective and challenge some of his negative thought processes.

It’s really helped him to appreciate his own potential and see that he has the capability to accomplish the things in life he sets out to achieve.

Social workers can make a really meaningful contribution to the lives of people living with mental illness. There are so many different approaches you can take, and the right approach very much depends on the specific needs of the person you’re working with.

It has been an amazing learning experience working alongside Richard, and really inspired my practice having seen the change that someone experiencing mental illness can make when effectively supported by services.

 

Richard and Benji worked together in 2017 whilst Benji was working at the East London NHS Foundation Trust in Luton.