From homelessness to higher education: Chichester graduate lands job helping others in recovery

Next month, he’s set to start a new role as a recovery co-ordinator for a local drug and alcohol charity and he’ll soon pick up the keys to his new home.

Philip said if you’d have told him five years ago where he is now – he wouldn’t have believed it. Alongside studying for his degree, Philip became a lived experience trustee of Stonepillow, a homeless charity in Chichester and Bognor. And now he has the qualifications, as well as the lived experience, to help those with a similar background to follow in his footsteps.

On receiving a job offer for Change Grow Live, a charity helping those in recovery from addiction, Philip said: “I would not have had the confidence to go for something like that without the degree.

“I didn’t finish school, I got no GCSEs or A-Levels.

“The degree has helped me prioritise work and manage my time and has given me confidence and self esteem.”

He said these skills and formal qualification, as well as his lived experience, ‘is a match made in heaven for this role’.

Walking into a work environment without any formal education, and without much experience of technology, would have been almost impossible, he said. And that’s without the additional challenges faced by those living on the streets.

“Getting out of homelessness is difficult,” he said. “It is about getting a job, getting a guarantor for a place to live. They want all sorts of ID. Homeless people do not have passports, driving licenses, birth certificates.”

On how his higher education journey began, Philip said: “I had already started with Aspire to get foundation maths and English and did the bridging module as a check box exercise. But I loved it and it’s the first thing I finished in a long time. It gave me the confidence to get a degree.”

The bridging course is a 12-week module, From Adversity to University, and was the brainchild of Chichester lecturer Becky Edwards. It’s made a difference to the lives of care leavers, refugees and those experiencing homelessness, by giving them a chance to access higher education.

Philip became an advocate for the course and helped others to benefit from it.

“I took a year out to help be a bridge between people and the bridging module,” he said. “After that year, I sat down with Becky and talked about my next steps.”

He decided to join the first cohort on the BA (Hons) Sociology course at the University of Chichester – and signed up to live in halls.

“Sociology is the study of life and groups and society. There is a lot in the bridging course that was relatable to my own life and also in sociology.

“My journey is really linked with my recovery. I think for me the biggest thing I had to do for change was to get education. My five-year goal was to stay clean, finish my education and find somewhere to live – so I’m almost there.”

He said living with students was challenging, and the age-gap between him and his peers was ‘at least 20 years’, but that he’d learned a lot from his contemporaries.

“Dyslexia was one of the biggest challenges,” he said. “It’s the first time I have been in an education setting for more than 30 years, so I had to get to grips with the terminology and vocabulary.”

But his determination to make a change meant he overcame these barriers, and now he’s hoping to help others to do the same.

“I think the bridging module is a gateway of opportunity and hope for people,” he said.

“And as one of the lecturers said, anyone can obtain a degree if they work hard enough. Everyone should have access to higher education. It does provide opportunity and hope for those that want it.

“It is just a wonderful gift to give someone.”