REAL LIFE: A chance to change
 Hostel operations manager Julie Oakes has worked in the Norwich YMCA hostel for almost 30 years and has been involved with some of society's most challenging and troubled young people.
She is firm but warm, and quick to recognise when someone can use a second chance.
Richard has recently moved out of the YMCA into his own accommodation. It's a great victory for Julie and the hostel team, who have supported him through many ups and downs since he arrived 18 months before.
Since falling out with his family he had been sofa surfing and at interview he admitted that he was struggling to cope with a dependency on alcohol and various drugs. He was generally sober but every two weeks he would spend his giro in a single afternoon binge drinking. This was often accompanied by drug taking. He'd return to the YMCA drunk, loud, aggressive and difficult to manage.
"We could only try and get him to go to his room and sleep it off," said Julie. "The next day he'd be filled with remorse, promising never to do it again, but every two weeks it was the same. He was given another chance time and time again, as we knew he had a desperate desire to change. Appointments were made for him to seek further help but he never attended.
“So the pattern continued and eventually he fell so behind with his rent we had no choice but to give him notice to leave. I really hate to do that, admit that we can't help," said Julie.
Richard was devastated, begging Julie not to throw him out, asking for one more chance. Somehow Julie knew that this time he was serious and with the help of his support worker, Richard began the serious work of recovering from his problems. Counselling was arranged to help him overcome his drug and alcohol problems and he has since been reconciled with his family.
He still pops in to the YMCA to let them know how he's doing. "You wouldn't believe the change in him," says Julie, with maternal pride. "I love it when they make it."
A mother’s love
Gary was full of beans the day he dropped by to visit his former mentor, YMCA's hostel operations manager Julie Oakes, despite the fact that he was due in court the following week and likely to be sent to prison.
His girlfriend Michelle had given birth to a boy and they had brought the two-week-old baby in to meet Julie.
While Gary was off chatting with old mates from the hostel, Michelle asked Julie for a quiet word. Something was troubling her.
Knowing that Gary wasn't likely to be around much for his son, and unsure of
her own ability to bring him up, she wasn't convinced she could hold on to her baby for much longer. The prospect of local authority care for him was quite real; it was all she and Gary had known, after all.
"Can I put his name down for a room when he's 16?" she asked.
Julie was saddened by the fact that Michelle was serious.
"Michelle thought she had so little to offer her son, and assumed he'd end up homeless. It was the YMCA she looked to for security for him.
“Whatever happened to them, she could tell her little boy that he'd always have a home here."
Pictured above is Julie Oakes.
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