Angela’s story

Angela (25) was dependent on heroin and had just completed a prison sentence for breaking an ASBO when she came to WDP’s Chelmsford service in 2009. She had a five year old daughter who was diabetic and reliant on a daily insulin injection.

Angela’s drug worker says: “I had to explain to Angela on her first appointment that I would be making a Social Services referral as her daughter’s life was dependant on the insulin and I felt she was too chaotic to administer it. The next time I met Angela, her child had been placed in the care of a relative, and she would not make eye contact with me.”

The drug worker met with Angela regularly: “It was a difficult time for her. Relations with her family were not good and she felt everything was a mess. We worked through some of the underlying problems and the consequences of her drug use. After a while she started on a methadone prescription and gave up the heroin. She began to understand the risk she had put her daughter in and the seriousness of the situation.”

After six months, Angela was ready to look after her daughter again and she has now been drug-free, including methadone, for a year. She has visited the WDP team several times since and has recently given birth to her second child, a baby boy.

Angela says: “I now understand why my key worker made the decision to refer me to social services. It made me realise how much I needed to sort my life out. Without WDP I might never have managed to become drug free.”