Meet James, Jackson and Olivia

James is a single dad who initially came to our Barnardos Penrith Children’s Family Centre to access the free food bank. Tamara, (a Barnardos case manager) discovered some bigger problems that James needed help with and that’s when Barnardos stepped in to help the whole family.

James had lost his wife some months before in an accident and was overwhelmed with grief and loss. He had moved from interstate and he didn’t have any family to help him and was facing homelessness due to a rent increase that he simply couldn’t afford.

James was a truck driver but when his wife died unexpectedly he had to leave his job to become the primary carer for his two-year-old daughter Olivia. He and his wife Cristina*, who was originally from the Philippines, had taken out a $10,000 loan to pay for her permanent residency application. Even though she had passed away, the debt remained. He had also incurred other debts trying to pay for other necessities which amounted to almost $25,000 and his rent was going to be increased. This was just too overwhelming for James and he couldn’t cope, especially with going from a full-time wage to a Centrelink payment as he had to quit his job to care for his child. It just wasn’t enough.

Jackson, James’s 15-year-old son from a previous relationship, had recently come to live with him. When Jackson told his Dad that ‘if we need to be homeless then that’s going to be ok’, it was a wakeup call for James and he reached out for help from the Penrith team.

We welcomed James into our Family Support program where we helped him with overdue utility bills and advocated for him with his real estate agent to negotiate down the rent increase so that it was just manageable for James. That, along with the food bank, was helping James to keep his head just above water.

We then assisted James to get subsidised child-care for Olivia who was experiencing developmental and speech delays and enrolled James into a parenting course which helped him to engage with Olivia and respond to her early learning and development needs. We also helped him with his resume so that he could get jobs that were flexible with his own family needs. Unfortunately James’ son Jackson was also being bullied at school and so Barnardos also provided him with counselling support.

James’ situation has improved greatly since joining the program and he has developed a strong attachment with Olivia, cooking nutritious meals for her and helping her with the alphabet and numbers. Olivia’s development has come along leaps and bounds and her future looks bright. James is proud of his children and has worked so hard to change for them and give them a better life. Even though there will come a time when James will no longer need to be in our program, we always ensure that people like James and his children know that we are always here for them.

“When I had my last visit with James, he said he’s been encouraging his cousin to connect with a program like the one he did at Barnardos because he’s got so much out of it. James said it’s made such a huge difference to his life,” said Tamara, Barnardos case manager.

James, Jackson and Olivia can now look forward to a brighter future together.

* Names changed and models used to protect privacy.