Zero Expectations: Supporting Vulnerable Adults

By Ivy Thomas

This book offers a sincere look at the Supported Housing sector through the eyes of a former drug and alcohol addict, and prisoner, turned front line worker:
Zayne is gripping the rail of a balcony on the 24th floor of the Pegasus hotel. His thoughts take him to his efforts of supporting vulnerable adults and the impact that Austerity has on these vulnerable people, and front line workers, in this sector of our society.
He gives a hands on theoretical introduction of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Motivational Interviewing techniques to staff and puts theory into practice, working with real caseloads such as; Zachariah, an apparent racist and one time ‘angriest person in Britain,’ who finds his understanding of confrontation an excuse for excess violence, and TJ, with the vacant look of depression; despair in his eyes, unable to utter his own name, and suffers panic attacks to the point of chronic agoraphobia.
A fascinatingly true story, entwined with parables and tales of his turbulent past; this book also offers Brief Intervention for drug and alcohol addiction, and an introduction, with easy to follow instructions to Mindfulness Meditation which is becoming increasingly popular in the western hemisphere as a stress reduction tool.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Dec 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781728356327

Book preview

Zero Expectations

Supporting Vulnerable Adults

Ivy Thomas

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AuthorHouse™ UK

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403 USA

www.authorhouse.co.uk

Phone: UK TFN: 0800 0148641 (Toll Free inside the UK)

UK Local: 02036 956322 ([phone] from outside the UK)

Copyright © 2020 Ivy Thomas. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  12/15/2020

ISBN: 978-1-7283-5633-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-5632-7 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Illustration: Girl in the breeze by Jeanna LPC-age 9

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Part One

Treatment within the NHS

Support with Alcohol

Basic Staff Training

Zachariah

Part Two

Austerity Targets and Tick Boxes

The residents get on board

Towards The End Of The Second Year

But the pressure pilled on

New Administrator

Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment)

Annex

Special thanks

I would like to express my heartfelt warmth and gratitude.

To Emilie, for her effort and dedication

in supporting me with this project.

Many Thanks!

Part One

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I n the blazing orangey red colours of the sky, etched on puffs of retreating clouds, a fitting caricature of the devil can be seen disappearing with the sinking origin of its display. A twilight dusky shade of blue begins to envelope the land and the organised chaos of the capital below.

Zayne walks out onto the balcony of a Suite on the 24th floor of the Pegasus Hotel. He grasps the rail and rocks his tall slim athletic frame gently back and forth. He had always been afraid of heights. But not now. Not this evening.

His eyes narrow in on the London landscape, which stretches out into the distant darkness, to where the earth and sky become one. He is searching for a particular building. He welcomes a soft breeze and allows the lids of his hazel green eyes to close with acceptance. He takes a deep measured breath. A faint dank smell from the river Thames reaches the dizzy heights of the hotel. He does not let it interrupt the moment. He savours it. Grateful in his thoughts that the air he is consuming is considerably more palatable on his nostrils and healthier on his lungs than the rat infested stench of the sewers and the carbon fumes emitted from the congested vehicles in the concrete jungle below.

He opens his eyes and looks out beyond the city of buildings into the oncoming darkness. He hears the misconception of silence; the deceptively calm humming of the traffic below, the distant blaring of a horn from a disgruntled driver, the sirens of emergency services. Those same sirens which would bellow out screaming sounds, so suddenly at times, giving him such a start that he would openly curse them as he strode along on his necessary daily use of the public by-ways. Zayne can hear all this on the 24th story balcony. But easily he cannot. He exhales again, measured, taking pleasure in remembering a few more of the distasteful things about city life, which help him to enjoy, if only for a brief spell, the pleasures of the 24th floor balcony. The retching, rancid smell of old cooking oil and stale fat emancipating from the overworked deep fat fryers of the local fast food shops which are in abundance down there.

He inhales another measured breath. It’s working.

His eyes follow the snake-like body of the River Thames. The colourful lights from the various sources along its banks reflect hazily off the winding slick black canvass parading its route. ‘Where’s it gone?’ A thought brings him about. For a moment the river is lost. He looks on. The docks, warehouses, other hotels and places of business along both banks of the river seem to merge. But with silent patience and an imaginary line of the river’s possible route, Zayne smiles to himself, and while holding in a precious breath of fresher air, he looks further upstream. ‘Ah ha, there it is’. The dark space reappears from the parting of the briefly merged buildings.

He can see no bridges. He can find no land mark. The various shapes and sizes of the buildings at this time of the evening and from such a distance, do not aid his slightly diminishing sight. The rigid lights from the blocks of homes and businesses, multi coloured lightings of giant billboards, neon signs and street lamps are all being brought to life with the sluggish moving trail of red and orange tail lights along with the bright white head lights of the transportation system. It’s like a giant Piccadilly Circus down there, he thinks, reminding himself again of a city life he does not enjoy as much as he used to.

He exhales slowly, feeling the tension from the city life below leaving his body and mind. He reaches for the black ribbon which holds his hair in place. He releases its grip and shakes out his slightly greying shoulder length dreadlocks. He spreads his arms a little away from his sides, palms facing forward, glances towards the heavens and utters Thanks. A thanks, as always, coming from deep within. Beyond thought and time for recognition, uttered simply as gratitude for the experience of life. This does not mean he would choose to live life all over again. In fact, quite the contrary.

He feels his brain tiring from the mesmeric show below. With another welcome breeze, his thoughts begin to drift to the chain of events which led him to the balcony on the 24th floor.

Slipping into a dreamy state, he begins to remember the day he returned home from his routine morning workout at the local gym.

During the previous six months, feelings of anxiety had been growing within him. The anticipation of finally receiving that letter, multiplied with each passing day of it not arriving. He hadn’t seen any mail when he left the house that morning. The postman delivered mail twice a day back then, he thinks to himself as his vision of the landscape before him fades further away and thoughts and images of the past begin to emerge with clarity.

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He opened the front door of the house. Inside the entrance, between the door of the downstairs apartment and the door to the 1st floor flat, envelopes and advertising junk mail were sprawled across the brown coarse haired mat. His pulse quickened. His eyes searched, darting from letter to letter, recognising the familiar junk mail and discarding it with contempt. When he saw the brown official looking envelope, his heart skipped a beat. That’s it. Finally. That must be it.

Deep in thought, he sees himself rubbing the clammy sweat on the palms of his hands onto his dark blue track suit bottoms, picking up the envelope and scanning it for a clue. A clue which would confirm what he believed he already knew. He opened the second door, which led up to the flat. With the laces still tied, he kicked off his trainers and shot up the 10 steps of the narrow poorly lit passage.

He knew his partner, Jolie, would be in. It was a Saturday morning. They had all been up late the previous night watching a Friday night family movie.

As usual, Zayne would be back in time from the gym to fill the room with the aroma of a freshly made pot of Columbian coffee which he would place on the floor beside the bed. Jolie liked to wake up in the morning to the fresh smell of coffee. This morning, however, was different. Through the clear panel of the brown envelope, Zayne identified the hazed purple and green colours of the document.

‘Yesss, it’s arrived! Yes!’ he said, with measured volume. Not shouting, but intently loud enough to be heard on the first floor. Jolie would be in a light morning sleep, or have just woken up. Not too loud though. The sound might carry to the second floor where their two young daughters might still be sleeping.

Bursting with pride, heart pounding, as gently as he could, he continued up the flight of stairs. ‘At last I will be able to provide for my family as a man should!’

With a broad smile on his face, he poked his head around the bedroom door before entering. ‘Forgive me my dear,’ he continued, ‘let me be old school for a while.’

Jolie was in the middle of her morning stretch. The duvet rippled like an unbroken wave rolling to shore on a calm day. Her head peeked out from the duvet which covered the rest of her long silky dark hair and her slim shapely body. ‘Bonjour’ she said with her soft French accent, twitching her petite nose like Samantha from Bewitched. Her cute smile showed him she was alert to his hyper activity, and his remarks about equality. She nestled under the duvet to steal the last few moments of her time in bed.

Jolie deserved her time of tranquillity. Not only had she been spending time working and developing her own on-line art business, she also worked tirelessly with the day to day upkeep of the house, the children and at times, Zayne’s erratic behaviour. Zayne did his best to help out around the house, but conceded he could not keep up with the effort that she put in to it all. He would tidy. She would clean. Although Jolie was a good parent and partner, the effect of Zayne not working full time, for the past two years, had begun to take its toll.

‘On the day I receive that bloody CRB, I will be working full time within a month,’ he remembers saying to her. Such was his intent, enthusiasm and confidence.

He knew the Criminal Records Bureau was the document needed to assist employers in making safer recruitment decisions and to, theoretically, prevent unsuitable applicants from working with vulnerable people. He appreciated the reasons but, Jeeze! It needs working on. Criminal in its application. He spent months applying for jobs without even getting to the interview stage because… "Sorry, we cannot accept your application until you have a valid CRB."

But now it had finally arrived. Zayne and Jolie celebrated together with their two young daughters who had actually been awake for some time playing quietly together upstairs in their room. A few days later while Jolie was working from home, kneeling on the living room floor with her hair tied up in a bun and sporting a fringe-only her Hammer trousers and loose fitting tank top set her apart from looking like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s- cards and pieces of paper of multi colours shapes and sizes, scissors, fine pens and various drawing and writing implements of different grades were strewn in a semi-circle of organised chaos around her. Meanwhile, Zayne had been busy searching the internet looking for suitable jobs. The unexpected sound of the phone made them both jump.

It was Rebecca.

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Rebecca was the director of Valentines Recruitment Agency. She had an Indian accent and always seemed quite empathic to Zayne’s cause. She also knew he had applied to other agencies for work. Rebecca had sent off for a CRB to enable Zayne to work for Valentines, but it had been over three months now and he was getting restless. Zayne had been calling her up on a regular basis over the past few months for possible job offers which may have not required a CRB. The result of those calls had a similar response to other jobs he had applied for. ‘I’m sorry Zayne, we do have work but they all require a current CRB.’

Still deep in a drift on the balcony, Zayne replays the phone call from Rebecca like it was yesterday.

‘Hi, Zayne, it’s Rebecca. How are you?’

‘I’m fine,’ he replied, knowing what was coming next.

‘I have a position for a Drug and Alcohol Worker. It’s a two month contract with St. Antony’s. An abstinent based hostel for homeless men in the East End of London.’

‘Yes! Of course I’ll take it,’ he responded excitedly, without waiting to actually be asked.

Now I got the CRB. If I don’t like this job, I can continue to apply for others while earning some money.

‘Do you have the CRB yet?’ Rebecca asked hesitantly.

‘Yes. I do,’ he replied, feeling ultra-proud of himself, nodding and pointing at the phone in the direction of Jolie, who had put things to rest when she noticed his excitement.

‘It’s time to work Rebecca,’ said Zayne, punching the air with delight. Thanks.

The actual CRB Zayne had received came from another agency. He had been told by that agency that the £40 he had paid for it would be reimbursed after a job was secured, or so many hours completed. But he had been waiting far too long to let this opportunity from Rebecca pass.

First come, first serve, he thought, smiling to himself as meta-thoughts flashed to his early teenage years.

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Thoughts of the KINGS cinema in Kingston, the island’s capital, came flowing back. It was where he first heard those words. First come, first serve. The theatre was situated on Windward road, a main road leading from Harbour View, just outside of Kingston towards the down town area where awful violence was to erupt.

The lanky, mixed race, 12 year old had been sent from a children’s home in England to live with his grandmother in Jamaica in a spacious, but crowed, four-bedroom bungalow on a cul-de-sac, a few blocks directly behind the cinema. 4a Camden road Kingston 16. He could never forget that address. It shared the worst memory of his nine year stay on the island, possibly the worst memory of his life. His frail, bed ridden, great grandma, a helper, an aunty, and his half-brother and sister also lived in the house. His half-brother, Duke, was two years older than Zayne and always a few kilos heavier. Duke grew up with his sister, uncle and his grandmother on the other end of the island in St Elizabeth, known for the red dirt that is excavated for its bauxite - an aluminium ore - which is said by most Jamaicans living elsewhere on the island to be the main cause of the Red Skinned people who hail from there. Duke had already been toughened by the rural life of the Jamaican youth and culture of the age. Being beaten by his uncle was more likely than not. He had moved from the country to the capital through necessity rather than choice and although born in England, Duke was Jamaican and Zayne looked up to him.

On that particular day, the sun had baked the streets of the capital. Both he and Duke were coming back from a day out on a nearby beach. Bare-chested and both wearing cut at the knee trousers worn dry following the swim. Zayne was having difficulty finding a way to neatly balance the blown up inner tube of a truck’s wheel-which they had relieved from someone’s back yard and used as a swimming ring-as he rolled it down the street like the young Jamaicans. He remembers coming to a halt and admiring a scene before him as the hot afternoon sun began to set on the capital.

KINGS cinema stood on three quarters of an acre of land majestically looking out over the main road attracting drivers and passers-by alike.

As Zayne’s thoughts take him back to the time, he can still see the picture clear as day; starring up at the posters on the large white washed walls, at the front of the colonial looking building. Usually, the posters for coming attractions would have been of Westerns. John Wayne or Clint Eastwood would have guaranteed a full house. That day, however, was different.

Bare footed, Zayne stood rooted to the ground. Not yet realising he was standing on the slightly cooler heat of the dirt in the open front court yard of the cinema. ‘Wow! Look at that!’ he exclaimed to Duke, pointing feverishly at the display of coming attractions and leaving the inner tube, which he had put over his head to balance on his shoulder, escaping unnoticed down his skinny frame towards his ankles. There before him was a never before seen poster of a Chinese man, wearing what Zayne thought looked like a baggy pair of black pyjamas with a black length of cloth tied in a knot around his waist. He was freeze framed in mid-air doing a flying karate kick over symbols from the Chinese language, which appeared to jump out from the poster and speak to Zayne.

Zayne stood beside his brother staring up at the poster. It was the first movie of its kind to be shown at that cinema. The age of the martial arts movie in Jamaica was being born.

Zayne was mesmerised. Duke nudged him, asking in Jamaican patois ‘You want to come watch dat movie wid me?’ It was the first time Duke had asked Zayne if he wanted to go to the movies with him. Ever since he had moved to Jamaica and found out he had a brother, he had been waiting for a moment like this.

‘Yea man,’ Zayne responded, in a strange English, approaching patois dialect, trying to sound Jamaican like his big brother.

‘Mek sure you ready early! Here is different from Englan,’ Duke warned his excited younger brother.

He felt butterflies in his stomach as the anticipation grew with the opening night getting closer. Youths were play fighting at every given opportunity and on the streets everyone was talking about the karate movie.

Anticipating the crowd that evening, spruced up and ready for the film, he and his brother arrived at the cinema early. They were to be amongst the first in when the doors opened. The night was cool. The excitement from the buzz in the air kept Zayne warm.

As the two brothers approached the entrance at the back of the cinema, across from an open concrete space used as the car park, Zaynes eyes were drawn to the buildings’ large walls, now lit up by bright yellow incandescent lights and spotlights which enhanced the posters of the flying Chinese man even more. The fact that the movie was sub-titled in English bore no difference to the amount of people who turned up that night. Many of whom, Zayne suspected, wouldn’t even attempt to keep up with the reading of the subtitles, even if they could read, lest they missed the karate action.

In the hope of creating an orderly entrance to the box office, a tunnelled grid-iron caging was constructed. It was about a metre wide by roughly two meters high and stretched from the entrance of the cinema to twenty meters or so into the grounds of the car park.

Zayne and Duke had arrived before the colourful main crowd had shown up. Almost an hour later than scheduled, the cinema staff, in their own sweet Jamaican laid back way had still not opened the gates. Meanwhile, the crowd had begun to fill the car park. Zayne and Duke were in the middle of the packed sweaty queue, within the iron entrapment, accompanied by the overpowering smell of aftershave and perfume lingering in the still night air. He felt like a sardine, the cage his tin, waiting for the doors to open for the box office. The crowd began to get restless, pushing and barging forward, shouting and screaming in patois Open de doors! Open de doors! Duke grabbed Zayne’s arm protectively, holding him firmly rooted to the ground- not that he needed to, Zayne couldn’t move anyway. The sheer intensity of the crowd held him fast.

‘It’s not like dis in Englan is it?’ Duke asked rhetorically with a smile, as if proving a point.

Desperation crept through the crowd. The tension within the grid iron grew. The cinema goers began to jostle for a better position, or to get in without paying. Heart thumping, feeling like a trapped animal, Zayne looked out from his cage. He could see and hear the bustling mob of people almost fighting their way into the cinema through the exit gates -which appeared to have been forcibly opened. Others were forming human ladders to climb over the high walls. Scattered amongst the crowds, hustlers and vendors were making the most of the gathering, the rustic smell of roasting peanuts, the zest in the air from fresh peeled oranges, and fresh jelly coconuts skilfully being cut open with a machete to produce the sweet thirst quenching water. All seemed to be taken in their stride. Except for Zayne. Without warning, the doors for the ticket office opened. Those who could not afford to get in were lest dressed, Khaki shorts, ragged T shirts, no shoes, or manners, they began clambering, like crabs scuttling across a terrain to get to their hole, over the heads of those who were first in line and trapped within the grid iron enclosure. Zayne’s heart was pounding with freight and excitement. It was the first time that the young English boy had experienced that type of happening. ‘No! It’s not like this in England!’ Zayne said, answering the rhetorical question Duke had asked a few moments before. ‘In England they queue and wait for their turn, even at bus stops. In the rain!’ Duke grabbed the foot of one of the crawlers, who was being punched and verbally abused in patois by those trying to stop him and others from getting ahead in the queue. The crawler kicked out, trying to free himself and still urging forward he looked back and said, with a dirty grin and a look of defiance ‘Dis place can’t whole everybady. First come. First serve.’ The crawler kicked loose and scampered across the heads and shoulders of all in the queue, into the cinema and out of sight. Without paying. The gates were closed Just before Zayne and his brother could get in.

Yeah. First come, first served.

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After he had taken the details for the job and thanked Rebecca, Zayne hung up the phone. The excitement of the call died down. Jolie went back to her business. Zayne went to the bedroom and lay flat on his back on the king sized bed. He closed his eyes, inhaling deeply and letting out a long sigh. Thanks. And with the thought of a job in sight he proudly toured the past four years of his life…

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It had been almost four years to the day since Zayne had finished his prison sentence on an island in the Eastern Caribbean. Almost two years of his life had resulted in what he often thought of as, the best and worst thing to have happened to him, notwithstanding the death of a good friend and the birth of his children.

Bordelais wasn’t pretty. He now had the experience of prison to add to his colourful CV of life. He now understood what the term prison body referred to: Inmates, bored with time, exercised with the ferocity of raging coupling rods attached to the wheels of an out of control steam locomotive. Breaking records daily with sit-ups and push-ups. Sweat dripped from their glistening bodies as they pumped kegs, which were filled with their emergency water for washing, drinking, and flushing the toilet. Most had rough scars, from knives, bullets, and machete wounds, mapped out on their brown or dark skinned bodies, reminders of past battles.

During the days before he came to terms with the cruel reality of prison, he would sit in his overcrowded sewer of a cell, high up in the dense green forestry hills of the island where Bordelais stood. At night, when he no longer had to bed on the shiny grey cold and uncomfortable concrete flooring where roaches and cat sized rats ran riot throughout the night, he lay on the top bunk in temperatures of 85 degrees. The torturous bright cell light, directly above his head, which the guards, who went walkabout at times would neglect to turn off, made the night air feel like the dry heat of a sauna, without the possibility of being able to walk out and take a dip in the cool waters of a pool or shower. He became alert to the dangers within the tense atmosphere of the prison. Knowing that he could be attacked at any time, for any reason, enhanced his senses like a deaf piano tuner homing in on the vibrations of the cords being struck.

During his first week, as if being shown a preview of what was to come, there was an attack on an inmate. The brutal assault set his alert systems on overdrive. The tall lanky brown skinned perpetrator, armed with a razor blade attached to some sort of rod-what they call a foosh- showing no apparent signs of emotions, walked calmly around the second floor landing, towards the showers, to another inmate. He grabbed him by the throat, pushed him up against a wall and almost as if in slow motion set about viciously slicing his arms and face. Zayne looked on in horror as blood dripped from the victim’s face and flowed like a squirting fountain from his arms. Other inmates gathered around on the different landings, vying for a descent view of the onslaught, not wanting to get physically involved but shouting to the victim, Run! Run! The guards stood well out of the way watching the scenario from a safe distance. Zayne rushed up to one of the guards during the heat of the battle that never was ‘Why don’t you stop it man! He’s going to kill him!’

‘They all claim to be bad man,’ replied the firmly built uniformed guard with a deep St Lucian accent ‘so let dem deal with it. I have me family to go home to.’

The reply sent a shiver down Zayne’s spine. I’ve never claimed to be a bad man. If I got attacked, would the guards also stand off?

A few days later, the victim returned from the medical wing. He lost the use of his right arm. The resulting bulky scars, resembling leaches on his sun kissed skin, added other locations to his personal body map of battles.

Following that early induction of prison violence, Zayne’s alert system was never the same again. Even when all was quiet and seemingly calm, he felt it was too quiet, too calm. The atmospheric vibes kept him like an animal sensing the calm before the storm. He would be drawn to any sudden or inconspicuous movement, seeking out possible dangers. Sometimes just his eyes would dart towards a shift in movement, other times, a sudden jerk of his head to the left or right would suffice. Then there were the times, depending on the vibes, he would just freeze, listen and feel, with all of his senses to anticipate what course of action, or non-action to take. This led to the constant anxiety which coursed through his insides. And Zayne took a lot of this anxiety, which became dormant after a while, back home to England. Every level of interaction, between himself and others, or even himself to himself, seemed to be exaggerated. The confusion of his emotions and behaviour, the complete and utter feeling of emptiness, of being drained until nothing was left caused by being disconnected from the ones he loved. And being purposely alienated by a foreign language from inmates who’s only purpose, during the first six months of his sentence, seemed to be to intimidate and terrorise him. He