Dave's story

Dave was born in Leicester. He was one of four children, but had a traumatic childhood, along with his siblings. They were neglected and abused and as a consequence in 2002, his father was sentenced to ten years in prison. Due to the trauma that had occurred after years of neglect, Dave decided to leave Leicester and moved to London. What should have been a new start for him, started twenty years of alcohol and drug abuse. Within a year he was an addict and heavily reliant on heroin.

After years of addiction, Dave finally got a wake up call when one of his best friends died of an overdose whilst in his company. Dave tried to save him, but unfortunately did not succeed. This led Dave to take control and try to beat his addiction. He locked himself in a room for six days in an attempt to get clean, during which he went through stressful detoxification.

Now clean of his addiction, Dave moved to Bath to be closer to his sister. This is where he contacted Julian House for support. He desperately wanted to get his life back on track and hopefully start working. One of the issues he had was transportation, getting to and from work . The Employability Lead at Julian House suggested to him that he took part on the Build-a-Bike course. He completed the course and in return received a bike, a reference as well as three AQA accreditation certificates.

Dave is now working part time and with the help and support from Julian House his life is on the up.