A window into LandWorks

“My support worker was telling me about LandWorks because he went through the programme and told me how beneficial it was. It took me a few weeks or maybe a month to build up the courage to come here…

I remember the first day I come here, yeah. I was quite nervous. I wasn’t too sure what I was getting myself into…

I’m 31 now. I’ve been 15 years in and out of the system […] I find once you’ve been there once, it’s just so easy to chuck you back in like. Yeah.

The last two times I’ve been let out of jail as well, it’s always been on a Friday because it’s meant getting out for the weekend and then they say go to the council … well the last three times actually, they’ve gone to the council and they’ve said we can’t do nothing for you and then you’re stuck in limbo and you just get into the wrong crowd … start taking drugs straightaway, you’ve got nowhere to go or nowhere to be and it’s just setting you up to fail straightaway.

Luckily, last time I manged to find somewhere for the first week and then I found a shared house with help from my support worker. But if I didn’t find somewhere that night, I would’ve just got re-called straightaway. I don’t think they should release people without nowhere to stay. That’s got to change as well. But they’re setting you up to fail straightaway.

Then, I had a bit of a scare at the hospital like. I got a bad infection and then my kidneys stopped working so they had to put me on a dialysis machine. Yeah, a lot of chest drains. I had three inside. I had an operation on both lungs, they scraped my lungs off. It was at the end of the summer it was. I was in hospital for like 13 weeks. I went bed ok and then I woke up and I couldn’t move my legs and that was the worst thing about it. That was scary. Yeah.

I think I needed it though, a wake-up call to my life. It’s like I’ve been given a second chance. Yeah, because if it didn’t happen, I’d still be stuck in the shared house.

Hats off to the NHS, they did a great job. I didn’t realise how much they do until you’re in that position and how many people it takes for the hospital to run, down to the cleaners, down to the porters, the nurses, the doctors, they’re all wonderful […] I didn’t realise how serious it was until after like. A lot of people die from it within days, sepsis.

They even called my family in the room and said they can’t guarantee no outlook. They said they couldn’t get the infection under control and then they were going to put me on a kidney transplant or be on dialysis for the rest of my life, and they don’t know how, but my body recovered. Yeah. So, I was lucky. I didn’t want to have to go to hospital every week to go on that machine…

I’m making them that plaque to say thank you. Yeah. There’s an opportunity for me to go back to see them in the intensive care unit, to meet the staff and that and they can talk me through it, so I’ll present it to them then. It’s one plaque but it broke so I had to make another one. I’ve made it now. Two angels on either side, yeah.

[LandWorks] put me on the right path. My confidence has got more. Yeah, and like routine, my routine’s better like. Before I would make excuses, I can’t go today, this and that. I’ve done none of that like. Even my mum said … a few weeks ago I couldn’t find my train ticket and mum said before, the old JimBob, would say I ain’t going, that sort of stuff … but I just got in a taxi and paid for the train myself. Yeah. My mum said she was so shocked. She said she thought that was it for me. She said usually you’d be kicking off, you’d be moaning and that, but I just went along with it. I didn’t even realise I was doing it until she said after like and I thought back and I thought yeah, I would’ve.

I think the stress I put them through, going to the hospital every day and that, being on death’s door like. I feel like I owe them as well.

I find probation … it’s like you’re stuck in that circle of people who don’t want to change. Like every time I’ve been to jail it’s all the same faces. It’s just breaking that circle and probation don’t do that for me. It like draws me back in … see old associates, learn more crime, it’s not good.

At LandWorks it’s good, because people are breaking that circle and you see success with people. People are happier. Yeah, it’s a lot better. You don’t get none of that with probation like. You don’t see people laughing and joking, they don’t even want to be there like.

I think probation have been like it for so long they don’t know how to fix it, but it is broken and it’s just costing them more money in the long run and people keep on committing crimes, it’s costing them money to send them back to court, back to prison and no-one wins then. The victim don’t win, they ain’t winning, it’s just the tax payer paying the burden for it, which is not good. But I find until these things start affecting the MPs and stuff, nothing will change.

The public don’t see it, they just hear about it don’t they, they don’t have to see how it runs. I’ll make them a plaque to say how crap and broken it is. They’re not giving people the chance to change their life around. If people had that opportunity, like LandWorks has given me, then the community and people would be paid off in the long run ‘cos they’d get stuff back and at the minute they don’t give you that chance.”