Ronnie's Story

My name’s Ronnie, I’m a senior support worker at the Night Shelter in Blackburn. I support the young people that we have up in the night shelter from the referrals all the way up until they’re leaving the night shelter and they’re moving on to different projects or different housing associations. We help them open a bank account for them to receive benefits, the benefits that they need to claim to help them pay towards food, shopping, anything that they need really, to help them live. So, yeah, it started when I was a very young lad, 17. I came to the centre through my brother who used to attend, and we had a bit of a problem at home, family dispute with my mother.

Staff were very accommodating for every young person. Throughout the years I’ve used Nightsafe from 17 up until I was about 22 and then I stopped attending because I was working from there. I always wanted to give my time back to Nightsafe and help out. So I applied for bank staff and worked here for a year on bank staff, and then the role came up for the role I’m doing now, senior support work, and I applied for it and got it. So I’ve been working here now, coming up two years.

So my favourite part about this job is helping out everyone that we have up in a night shelter on a daily basis.

So my favourite part about this job is helping out everyone that we have up in a night shelter on a daily basis. When I come into work, I like helping, obviously, doing the handovers, meeting the young people that we have upstairs, doing the referrals, doing all the paperwork with the young people, making them feel safe and welcomed and doing their introductions, showing them around the night shelter, that’s mainly what I love doing, just to make them feel comfortable and at ease.

Nightsafe means the world to me. Without nightsafe, I would never have been able to make as far in life as I did. I’ve got a nice healthy son, a very nice house that I have now, and that’s all due to Nightsafe giving me the confidence to do anything that I planned out to do when I was younger.

And that’s what they mean to me. They are my second home and I do love coming here every single day. The days that I get off, I like to come in and do football on a Tuesday to help support the young people. I just love it and I mean, just fantastic.

** Images shown are not of actual person to protect their identity.

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