Joan had referred herself to our service after separating from her husband. This was a difficult time for her and she felt that it might help her to talk to someone. Joan referred herself to us after seeing a leaflet at her doctors. Joan was unsure about our service and how we might be able to help, but found it comforting to know that we would be able to visit her in her own home.

Joan had experienced abuse from her husband for a number of years before finding the courage to make the break and separate from him. When we first met her she was still going through her divorce, this is still ongoing as she is now waiting for the financial settlement to be agreed; Joan finds this really difficult as she still has to attend court, and she finds it hard having to face him. We have attended with her and supported her through this, we have also talked about what her options are, and this allows her to bounce around ideas before she has to make a final commitment.

Joan found it really helpful to talk about her abusive relationship, and felt safe to talk about things that she might have found difficult to tell other people, including her family. Although they were supportive of her she felt that it might upset them.

Joan has two children and realised that they were also struggling to come to terms with their mum and dad divorcing, she asked if we could help them, we explained the services that we could offer to her and together we discussed what she felt would be of most help and suitable for her children. The oldest child is receiving support from our services, he has a support worker who visits him on a one to one basis and he will be joining the next children’s group, due to the constraints of our funding we were unable to offer any support to her youngest child and we have signposted her to another agency who can provide support to her youngest child.

As we continued to meet and Joan’s confidence began to grow we looked at how it might benefit Joan to meet other people who had experienced something similar, also Joan was keen to learn more about what had happened to her, so we suggested that she might like to attend the Making Changes workshops. Joan works part time and for her to attend she would need to have some time off, she felt confident enough to speak to her employer herself and they agreed that she could change her hours to allow her to attend the workshops.

Joan enjoyed the workshops and really benefited from attending the group, she has made friends with some other ladies who attended and they meet regularly for coffee, as well as texting and supporting each other!