Page 25 - SafeLinkEvaluation

5a Theme 1: The LD ISVA significantly improved health and wellbeing through providing enduring emotional support
Clients discussed that they experienced mental health crises and the ISVA provided support throughout these, as well as emotional support more generally:
David: When I first started meeting [the LD ISVA], I was all over the place. There was a lot of things going on, and it was too much
for me. I was trying to kill myself, drinking a lot. But now I’m not drinking that much, in detox, not doing what I used to do.
I’m a lot calmer. So, she’s helped me out a real lot to get me where
I am today.
I know I can walk out the door and I’ll be walking out with a smile on my face...I’m looking forward to the future. Before I wasn’t. So, she’s helped me change myself.
If I’d wouldn’t have met [ISVA] and SafeLink, I don’t know if I would have been here today.
Alan: I’ve had suicide situations with [ ISVA]
on three occasions and she’s stayed on the phone with me. I would be deceased without her.
One client gave her feedback directly to the
LD ISVA. She said that the LD ISVA service was unlike other services or other people in her life. With the LD ISVA, she felt supported and
in control:
Sonia: Every time I meet
you, you don’t judge me. Everyone else tells me what to do and sometimes I feel so suffocated that I want to suicide. But you always listen and make me realise that
I have options and make me feel more in control.
Another client similarly said that the ISVA service was unlike any other in the level and type of support it provided:
eter: She’s been more helpful to me and more supportive than any mental health person has been in the last 15 years. What’s different about her is that she seems interested. She wants to help and help me get to the truth of what happened to me as a child and what happened to the original court case.
Clients felt that the LD ISVA service adapted to meet their needs in a way that other services and agencies did not:
Claire: Even though I can say
to doctor ‘could you talk in easy words?’, It doesn’t stay in the brain so then it would need to be written down. The doctor could be busy, and she might not have time to do that. It’s difficult.
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