Back to work tomorrow. I am not looking forward to it.
Last week I cried in a staff meeting.
I work part time for a council funded Tenancy support service.
I started my job in 2020, 4 months after the knock that blown our wold apart.
I had to go off sick in the hostel I worked at due to working full time and shift work.
To be honest my mental health could not have coped with the stress and drama of that hostel. Not whilst going through the biggest stress and drama of my own life.
So I found another job. Part time, home based.
This role I have enjoyed. The organisation are great to work for and I had a great manager.
Then April this year everything changed. Management has to tender for a service they’ve ran for 17 years. They put a proposal together proposing how they would hit the new targets some time last year.
They won the contract. So now we are implementing it.
The caseloads have increased, the outcomes have increased, we are audited and scrutinised on our case files it feels on a daily basis.
The meeting last week felt like a telling off. Targets are not being hit, our audits are not 100%. 100% of data is not accurate. Shock horror. We are human beings. We are not robots.
We are ‘doing too much’ for our clients apparently. Refer on, refer on, refer on is all we keep hearing.
Don’t actually support people, just refer them on and tick that box. Record that outcome.
I cried because I feel overloaded. My manager knows I have a husband in prison and I am on my own bringing up the kids right now. He also knows that I am on anti depressants and am having counselling in order to manage my mental health.
I say to the other wives that one day we will look back on this time in our life and be amazed that we even managed to get out of bed in the morning. Let alone bring up children, keep the house going and work.
I have looked at other jobs over the last week. However, it’s so difficult to find a job that is flexible enough to fit around the boys. Especially as school summer holidays are about to begin.
I just cannot take any more stress. My resilience and strength is being used up in surviving this trauma.
After the knock 