Our shortlisted storytellers
A selected group of storytellers got the chance to work with a professional writer to shape their experiences into powerful narratives – and share them live at the conference. Read their stories below.
Thomas Monaghan
Citizens Advice has been a part of my life for a long time. My personal journey started as a child - growing up with a Mam who was victim to domestic, emotional, and economic abuse by my Dad, a gambling addict and alcoholic. Who was there to help? Citizens Advice!
I recall clearly sitting in Citizens Advice Gateshead in 2012. I was 15, doing my GCSEs, and my Mam had decided to take the leap and separate from my Dad. She knew this would result in homelessness, reduced household income, legal issues like divorce, and a disruption to our education. At this time my Mam was extremely vulnerable mentally and had attempted to take her own life on more than one occasion. Now registered homeless, she could not see a way forward. I believe to this day it was because of the support provided by Citizens Advice that my Mam is still with us, for which I am ever grateful. When we were made homeless, Citizens Advice was there. When we were rehoused, Citizens Advice was there. When income was not there, Citizens Advice supported us.
Once I completed my Masters Degree in British History, I decided I wanted to give back to society and work in the third sector; a decision influenced by my family’s experiences. I joined Citizens Advice Northumberland in November 2020 as Funding Manager and worked in this role until December 2022. Throughout this role I used my lived experience to help drive our organisation's financial sustainability as I recognised how important and necessary Citizens Advice was to those in our community.
In January 2023, I joined National Citizens Advice as Corporate Partnerships Lead and took on the specialist role for Financial Services in February 2024. Again, my personal lived experience has been at the forefront of partnerships developments as I know there is so much more financial services can be doing to better serve those who are most vulnerable. At the same time, I recognise that Citizens Advice is the perfect solution - we just need the funding to be able to provide this valuable support.
Many of my family are still living in vulnerable situations and impoverished. But I am proud to stand here today and say, it is always Citizens Advice who reach out their hand and help them move forward. As recently as March 2025 they have supported my Mam with a Debt Relief Order without judgement. And again, my Mam has stated this has relieved her anxiety and allowed her to see a brighter future.
Fundraising is a challenging area of work at Citizens Advice. We are often seen as a part of the Government and not a charity with a federated structure. Many funders fail to realise our vast area of expertise both in advice delivery and our advocacy work. It is with this knowledge that I have continued using my lived experience to change their mindset and understand the value and importance of our work.
It is really difficult to put into words honestly what Citizens Advice means to me and my wider family. We are not just a charity, we really are the people's champion.
We were there when my Mam most needed support, and have been there for various other family members since. I am not ashamed nor embarrassed to inform everyone about my lived experiences because actually, I am proud to know the charity I now work for was there supporting us all the way through.
Obi Acreman
I joined Citizens Advice Wokingham in June 2023. I had just left my job of 8 months as a support worker and was burned out, struggling to enjoy life. Not long before that I'd dropped out of university at the end of my first year of studying Psychology with Counselling Skills due to severe challenges with my mental health.
I must have applied to nearly 30 jobs before I found the 'Living with EUPD' project adviser role at CAW. I vividly remember receiving the news that I was being offered the role. I responded something along the lines of 'really?!?'. For anyone who is unfamiliar, EUPD (Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder) is a mental health condition characterised by strong emotions which are difficult to control and impact all areas of life, especially interpersonal relationships.
Citizens Advice was a bit like a dream for me. It offered me the opportunity to make the difference I really wanted to and to pursue the career in mental health I was so deeply passionate about. At that time I was afraid I'd never be able to achieve these goals following my decision to leave higher education.
When I think about times where I've felt proud of myself, I always think of one client in particular. An autistic man with complex childhood trauma and severe anxiety, living in an overcrowded, damp property - barely scraping by on his low wages and tax credits. He was deeply fearful and mistrusting of the new-style benefits system and felt bullied and victimised by the claims processes.
After several weeks of listening and advocacy, together we were able to get a successful award of not only UC, but LCWRA and PIP. This was life-changing for him, leaving him and his family significantly better off each month.
I left that project shortly after closing his case to pursue a new role as a supervisor. Soon after that, he sent me a card. In it, he wrote that I was like a lighthouse leading a boat through stormy water. He told me that for the first time in his life he felt truly safe, supported and listened to.
That card still makes me feel a very deep sense of pride every time I think of it. I hope that the trust and rapport we were able to build together has empowered him to seek the support he needs in the future and advocate for himself.
During my time on that project, we were able to achieve some incredible outcomes for some of the most vulnerable members of our community, and I will never not be in awe of what we were able to build. At its busiest, the project had more than 30 clients on the caseload, and we made a difference for each and every one of them.
Beyond this, I have had the absolute joy of working closely within a thriving team of more than 50 volunteers and staff. I can't tell you how much of a privilege it is to spend every day with such a passionate, dedicated and tight-nit group of individuals. Each and every one of them shows up week after week simply because they want to, and they believe in what CA stands for.
In August 2024, just over a year after joining Citizens Advice Wokingham, I was made Supervisor. This past summer, I became Team Leader. I have thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to develop my breath and depth of understanding of all of our advice areas. As Team Leader, I have had the opportunity to lead and pioneer growth and evolution in our office. This has been a real learning curve and growing into my new role has been challenging at times - but now I’m so much more confident and now know that I can grow and thrive throughout periods of challenge and change.
When I think of what makes me proud today, I think about the environment and team that enabled me to flourish. I know I am incredibly lucky to spend every day amongst the colleagues and dear friends that I do, those who advocate for the residents of our borough so fiercely and advise them with such dedication, knowledge and compassion.
I am so proud of the way I have pushed through adversities in my personal life that otherwise might have held me back. And I am so incredibly lucky to have a team of people who will always uplift and support me, enabling me to learn and grow more every day. I now also take responsibility for leading on staff and volunteer well-being, and am currently progressing through my mental health first aid training, enabling me to continue to incorporate my passion for mental health and wellbeing into my current role.
I'm so proud of 19 year old me, who took the leap and relocated to follow their dreams, and of 20, 21 and 22 year old me who kept leaping after that - grabbing every opportunity with both hands and getting back up when they have fallen down (with, of course, a little help from their friends).
Kirsty Pemberton
My Gran was 101 when she passed away, but throughout her middle years into her 80's she was a regular CA volunteer in her home town of Warminster. I was a child during those years, and although she didn't live close by, I loved her company and her quick wit and intelligence when I went to visit her. My cousins and I would pitch up at her cottage and get up to all sorts of mischief, including the infamous Citizens Advice game. We would sit on one side of the table, and she would walk in playing the part of a member of the public with a problem to solve. We were the CA advisers. Looking back, it's surprising how many problems we thought could be solved by an inheritance of a million pounds, but she did try to teach us otherwise!
When I'd had enough of my corporate retail career at age 36, I wasn't sure what to do next. I had a young baby and wasn't sure exactly how to use the skills I'd acquired in the corporate world in a way that felt closer to my real world values. Honestly, I felt drained from the years of working in a way that felt far away from anything that I thought mattered. Enter my best friend - sending me a job ad that would send me down a better path. I first came to work for CA as a project coordinator for 2 days per week. As we all know, though - there's so much to be done, and so much to get your teeth into! I was soon working 3 days, then 4. I was lucky to find a culture that embraced everything I could give, and had no problem with my need to pick my children up from school, or attend their nativity play - in fact, they encouraged it. For the first time in my life, I felt valued as a person in my work environment. Now working full time hours in a flexible way, I am so appreciative of everything the job has given me - implicit trust to carve out a niche within the organisation, dignity, reassurance, encouragement and most of all the knowledge that there is always something better out there, if you have the tenacity to look for it.
It was during the early years of my CA career that I began to feel very passionate about the lack of justice for the migrant community that has become a core part of my job role. I started working with migrants from the beginning of my time at CA, and I very quickly realised that the funding and legal aid landscape ensured that migrants were not receiving equitable and affordable advice and representation, especially in the South West. After doing the research, I decided to start raising my voice about this issue and communicating the problem to the local council, and (much to people's dismay) to anyone who would listen.
There have been many times over the last 6 years where I have felt like giving up on this issue, but many more times when I simply knew that I couldn't. Having gotten some seed funding to start a free clinic with the only level 3 adviser in our area, I started to fully grasp the breadth of the problem for people living in a hostile environment with no one to help them navigate the complexities of our immigration rules. It was due to the success of this clinic that we are now in receipt of funding to train two CA advisers to level 2. When our project proposal was accepted, I felt I could finally say that we might be able to make a real difference to the people that needed us the most. I expect that my Gran would be thinking that all those Citizens Advice games came in pretty useful in the end - in fact they formed a core part of me and my life as it is today.
Jane Powell
I have always said that if I wrote a book about my life, I would call it A Life Less Ordinary. I would like to make clear that I do not consider myself special, and it is for others to assess whether I am living “a Life Less Ordinary” well. Yet I use the phrase because my circumstances are unusual and complex at times. I am living a life that I didn't expect to live on two counts.
Firstly, I nearly died when I was very young and had sepsis which the doctors at the time thought was the reason that I had cerebral palsy in the first place. Secondly, due to the permutations and realities of my disability and the way that my disability affects me in daily life, there are many professions and careers that are not open to me.
Coming to terms with this was a huge factor in why I had mental health challenges growing up. In my earlier years I found very few paths open to me; that did not yell out, STOP. The path I was trying to walk down contained barriers that seemed insurmountable at the time, and in my 20s there was no Disability Discrimination Act to help me journey through some difficult circumstances. For example, I’d always wanted to work in a field where I could help people. When I was younger, I attempted to complete a social work degree – but apart from having mental health issues at the time that I needed to address, there was no provision for placements for me. So I ended up leaving the course.
Acceptance is the key part of life, and perhaps we don't realise it until we need to work very hard to adapt to circumstances that we never thought would befall us. Living with Right-Sided Hemiplegic Cerebral Palsy throughout my life has been a huge challenge, yet my response is to live each day to the best of my ability. I aim to be a radiator shining forth warmth and to forgive myself on days when I appear to be more like a drain taking people's resources, when the struggles of life overwhelm me. Sometimes it is so easy to give up and feel that life is unjust, yet I know – and wish others to know too – that it is vital to wake up and realise that you can make a difference to a person's life.
I came to Citizens Advice after having to leave another job. My confidence was knocked, yet within two weeks of joining Citizens Advice in Peterborough I felt accepted. I also hoped to be able to use the knowledge that I had gained through undertaking a Master's degree in International Social Welfare & Social Policy. Particularly I anticipated being able to use my dissertation that I had written on “The Barriers People with Disabilities Experience in Obtaining and Maintaining Employment”.
During my volunteering with Citizens Advice, I have had the opportunity to use both what I have learnt in my policy degree and the knowledge that I gained from writing my dissertation. My role at Citizens Advice has slightly changed since I have been here because in 2019 I had an operation that actually made my disability more challenging. I no longer write the long reports that I once did. However, I still contribute to our research and campaigns work. I attend meetings, give feedback to my team and assist others in writing their reports. Through my research and campaigns volunteering, as well as being on the Disability Equity Committee at Citizens Advice, I feel immense satisfaction.
Barack Obama once advocated for “The Audacity of Hope”. However, my experiences have taught me that we need to go further. I recommend that we strive towards “An Audacity of Hope into Action” – where we visibly in our communities plant seeds of hope that grow into and blossom as trees of love, where the branches are made up of deeds of human kindness.
Maria Perez-Kelly
My name is Maria and I am the Quality Officer at Citizens Advice Bournemouth Christchurch & Poole. When I first moved to the UK from Spain 20 years ago, I struggled to navigate unfamiliar rules, customs, and a new language. Even basic bureaucratic tasks like sorting out council tax and bills can be overwhelming when you’re new to a country, and I often felt isolated and alone. Those experiences made me more empathetic and motivated to support others who may be going through similar situations.
I first spent over 10 years working in the education sector in south-west England, supporting vulnerable children with special needs. I found this work incredibly meaningful: I am dyslexic myself and while I love to learn, I sometimes struggled in mainstream education when I was young. But as a mother of Send children, I often wondered what would happen to all the young people I was encouraging, supporting and prompting to achieve their best results at school. What support would be available to them once they entered adulthood? I felt like something was missing in my path – a next step, a new challenge.
In 2019, I started my journey at Citizens Advice BCP as a voluntary general adviser. I was scared, unsure, with one question in my mind: would I be good enough? But as soon as I started, there was so much to learn, and I was eager to soak up as much information as I could. Soon, I was feeling that I’d achieved so much. My role as an adviser also brought me closer to the parents of students I used to support. Now I had more of an insight into the reality of these families' lives, I understood why their children were often struggling at school.
One day, my chief executive Tom asked me: “Why don’t you become a benefits adviser? As a paid job!” This was a new goal, a new path, and again, my brain would not rest as I started to educate myself on the deepest levels of the benefits system. My lord – it’s so confusing. But with the support and help of my manager, Elena, the wisest person in the appeals team, everything became clearer.
By 2020, I was in the middle of my best time at Citizens Advice. Then the drama started. I was diagnosed with stage 2 bowel cancer – and on top of that, Covid. When my mind was almost giving up, the best support team reassured me that I could keep going: our operational manager Jaime and DV caseworker Sarah. Thanks to them and my family, I managed to get my strength and confidence back, and started a new job as a supervisor at Citizens Advice.
Working closely with the most experienced supervisors, Bob, Austin and Jim, I was learning from the best in my new role – feeding my internal hunger for new knowledge. Unfortunately, in 2022, my illness came back, and I was diagnosed with Stage 4 liver metastasis. It made me think, is there something I am doing wrong? The answer is no. And again the super team – Jaime, Sara, Tom and our Deputy Chief Officer Dan – stood by me. They made sure I never felt alone, and supported me until I was well enough to return. Overall, I’ve never worked with such an amazing team as I have at Citizens Advice BCP, from team leaders to the most recent volunteer.
When I was a child, I dreamed of becoming an astronaut, an archaeologist like Indiana Jones or a lawyer – but my teachers and even my parents told me that I would never finish university. Citizens Advice has offered me a place where I feel I belong. In 2022, I applied to be our Quality Officer. I wanted to use everything I’d learned to help improve quality, processes, and outcomes. It’s not always easy, and my confidence still wavers at times. But Dan, with his calm leadership and belief in me, has helped me to believe in myself.
What I love about Citizens Advice is that you can always keep growing here. I am so proud of my local Citizens Advice, not only for giving me the opportunity to become part of their team, but also for helping me in the most difficult times. As someone who once found it difficult in education, I am now in a role where I am constantly learning – and it feels like there are always new beginnings.
Fiona Williams
Walking into Citizens Advice Blackpool was like coming home. I’d moved back to the North from West Berkshire following a challenging period in my life that gave me a new perspective on what was important to me. I’d originally taken on a maternity cover role with Shelter, managing advisers within Lancashire Prisons, which was an interesting period – I still have nightmares that I’ve forgotten to lock a gate! But I developed strong leadership and service delivery skills in a uniquely challenging environment.
I became Health Services Manager at Citizens Advice Blackpool, drawn by the opportunity to make a real difference in one of the most deprived areas in the country. I’d previously spent 13 years working at Citizens Advice West Berkshire, before my move back up North. I’d started there when my marriage was breaking down. I’d been working in my ex-husband’s business and I didn’t think I could afford to get divorced, as I didn’t know how I could make ends meet. That’s when I met a member of staff at Citizens Advice West Berkshire who empowered me to realise I could do this on my own. I started in an admin role, part-time, and with the support of colleagues I rebuilt my independence and eventually became Deputy Manager. At 50, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a lumpectomy, lymph node removal, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. I was fortunate to have the amazing support of staff and volunteers at Citizens Advice West Berkshire during this difficult time.
It’s safe to say that Blackpool and West Berkshire are very different areas. West Berkshire is an affluent area with deprived pockets. Blackpool is a deprived area, and I haven’t found any affluent pockets – I’m still looking! But working with the team here feels like having an extended family. There is so much support in our workplace and I’ve never laughed as much in my life as I have since I got to Blackpool. We work hard, but we laugh hard as well.
I manage wraparound projects including Social Prescribing, Community Navigation and Illness Prevention, which aims to keep people well at home and out of hospital. Every day I see the life-changing difference we make. One client, a housebound woman with no income and little support, was struggling to survive. Through home visits and collaboration across teams, we secured immediate essentials and, over time, over £15,000 a year in benefits, as well as a Blue Badge to improve her independence. She told us she “wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for us”.
Another client with terminal cancer reminded me of the human connection at the heart of our work. Alongside financial support of over £1,100 per month, I brought my dog, Summer, to visit her after she shared how much she missed her own pet. That visit meant so much to her – she told me she had “the best day ever.” Inspired by that experience, I trained Summer as a therapy dog. She was such a naughty puppy, my children were amazed that she managed to pass the test. But she now brings comfort to hospital staff and patients of all ages including children.
These experiences highlight the unique blend of practical support and human kindness that Citizens Advice Blackpool provides. We laugh, because our amazing Chief Executive, Tracy, is always coming into the office saying, ‘I’ve secured funding for another project…’ And we wait with bated breath to find out what we’ll be doing next. We’re always busy, and it’s always challenging, especially in an area with so much need. But with these wraparound projects, we can continue delivering work that is not only life-changing but often life-saving – and this is what motivates me every day.
Bob Dalton
After a long and varied career spanning being, amongst other things, a merchant seaman, a car salesman, a plumber and ultimately being lucky enough to forge a career running international IT service businesses, I hatched a plan to retire, just slightly early, at the age of 65. This plan, cunning as it was, was welcomed and supported by my brilliant wife, with one firm proviso: "Make sure you are out of the house for a couple of days a week…”
A bit of research into possible volunteering roles came up with Witness Service, and partly because I had almost no knowledge of the inner workings of the justice system it immediately jumped out.
After a surprisingly challenging interview process (to be fair to me, I hadn't had an interview as such for probably 25 years), I was accepted and embarked on the training and induction process. This process held more than a few surprises, particularly as regards the differences between what we think we know from TV dramas and the real thing. The hours spent observing actual trials were particularly illuminating. I recall being more than a little gobsmacked during a criminal damage trial when the very proper lady who was sitting as Presiding Justice asked the witness, in impeccably received English tones, how large the letters were that spelt a particularly rude word on a shop window. Goodness me, it felt like the Queen herself was saying it…
Now nearly three years in I am, if anything, even more enthusiastic about the role. I have had the enormous pleasure of working with some brilliant fellow volunteers and team leaders, but the stars of the show have been the witnesses themselves. Sometimes delightful, occasionally challenging but always worthy of our care and support, it has been such a rewarding experience, particularly when someone comes to us full of trepidation but is able to go into court, speak their truth and often get the justice they seek.
Of course, in Witness Service we don’t work in isolation. We share interactions with witnesses across a wide range of disciplines within the courts. During their journey through the trial process we and our witnesses will interact with the Crown Prosecution Service, prosecutors, police, ushers, court security teams and others. I have worked in court environments where the relationships between those teams are not the most collaborative but it is those in which we work in lock-step with each other that we are able to deliver the best outcomes for our witnesses. I pay tribute to those professionals we work alongside who can see past our volunteer status and work with us as one team.
I must admit the odd burst of pride when we get a note of thanks on the feedback. There have been many highlights, but a recent one showed the importance of supporting witnesses, victims and their families throughout the entire process – not just in the lead up to the trial and the trial itself. I looked after a family group who attended a youth sentencing for a particularly distressing case, and we got the following feedback from the police officer in charge: "Please can you pass on my thanks to Bob and the Witness Service team at Worthing Magistrates Court this afternoon. They were very helpful in assisting with a number of bereaved family members who had attended for a sentencing at the youth court. Emotions were understandably high and the knowledge and kindness of the team was and is always, greatly appreciated."
As many of you will know, Citizens Advice will be handing over responsibility for the running of Witness Service to Victim Support in April 2026. Such change is always a challenge but, while I will always be grateful to Citizens Advice for setting me on this course, I fully intend to continue this incredible volunteering journey; supporting some of the most fearful, funny, sometimes slightly strange and above all most deserving of our care folks it has been my privilege to meet.
Rosi Avis
I have to admit I initially didn’t know a huge amount about Citizens Advice when I spotted the job advert for a role at Citizens Advice Manchester. At the time, I’d been working in a small charity for a few years, after realising that the acting career I’d hoped for wasn’t taking off. Instead, I’d settled on the one thing I wanted from a job: making an impact on people’s lives. In my first voluntary sector job I’d worked with young people and gained some great experience in that unique small charity way – you take on more and more tasks as there’s never enough staff – but in 2013 it was time for a change. Before applying for the job at Citizens Advice Manchester I had to make a call home to get the lowdown from my parents, during which it transpired that they’d used the service for an issue with my university housing in the past, as well as having friends who volunteered in local branches. They sparked that interest for me in a service which offers help to anyone, no matter their circumstances or who they are. Once I did more research, I was drawn to the fact that the service stays rooted in local communities while also trying to tackle policy at a national level.
I joined on a two-year contract in a role focused on connection, bringing advice services across the city together to develop resilience following huge cuts to Legal Aid. I’ve now been with Citizens Advice for 12 years, and – spoiler alert – those difficult times the advice sector was facing have never really let up! Over the years in Manchester, I developed my skills and took on roles in communications, engagement and research and campaigns, and working in a local office I saw the tangible difference that our advice makes to people’s lives, and the dedication from people both on the frontline and behind the scenes to achieving that.
This is demonstrated in an incredibly powerful video that we made in 2015/16 to try and stop our funding from being decimated – it had our clients sharing the impact that Citizens Advice had had on their lives, with people telling us that without our help they’d be on the street, or they didn’t know where they’d be. But one story that really stands out from my time with CAM was when we set up our Advice on Prescription service, putting access to advice into GP practices. One doctor told us about a patient who’d come to see them with early signs of frostbite. They’d not been on any wild adventures; they just couldn’t afford to put their heating on while the ‘Beast from the East’ of 2018 raged outside. A call to our service, a referral to our energy team, and a few weeks later that patient practically bounced into their follow-up appointment feeling able to cope again. It’s why we all do it, right?
Last year, I took a leap to join the National team as Senior Policy and Engagement Officer in the Energy policy team. I work with the team to maximise their impact through effective engagement and trying to grow our platform. I've always been passionate about the way we use our clients’ stories to push for change and make things better for those who come after them. At a time when energy bills are at the forefront of so many people’s minds, this was an exciting chance to get closer to our work in this space and be a part of driving it forward.
Moving jobs after 11 years was always going to be daunting (doing it at the same time as moving house and turning 40 was possibly madness), but the hardest thing about leaving CA Manchester was saying goodbye to a fabulous team of people. However, I’ve also realised that the theme of great people is something that runs throughout the Citizens Advice service, and I now get to work alongside another amazing team who are passionate about the difference our data and insights can bring to people’s lives. Whether it’s on the frontline delivering advice, pushing for policy change, or the myriad of other roles which play their part in making a difference, what doesn’t change is the commitment that people bring to making the service great. It’s what makes me proud to be a part of Citizens Advice, hopefully for many years to come.
Vincent Willson
In 1985, I got a job at Exeter CAB (as it was then) as a benefits adviser. I have now worked for Citizens Advice, in various roles, for 40 years. What's kept me working for the organisation is its values. How we describe our values and purpose has changed over time, but, fundamentally, the job is the same – helping people to improve their quality of life, whoever they are and whatever the issue.
I have mostly been a benefits adviser, working in different LCAs in Devon. For 24 years I worked for Devon Welfare Rights Unit – a national Citizens Advice service – and I am now the Chief Officer at Citizens Advice Teignbridge. What I've always loved is that our only real purpose is to help clients. It's brilliant when you make a difference – you win an appeal, or someone you trained wins one, or your funding application succeeds. As advisers we have the privilege of listening, entering and understanding someone's life for a short period and have the luxury of doing what we can to help without being beholden to anyone else. Independence is fantastic.
An example: a client, I’ll call her Catherine, was in her 40s and had severe mobility problems. She had been claiming Disability Living Allowance (DLA), and someone – ‘a friend’ – told the DWP she was working. Although this was irrelevant to DLA and there was no evidence that her mobility had changed, the DWP had stopped Catherine’s DLA and were recovering an ‘overpayment’ of several thousand pounds. She had lost an appeal and was being prosecuted for fraud when she came to us for advice .
Catherine’s case was complicated, but, essentially, we had to appeal the DLA decision – she was entitled to it and hadn’t been overpaid – and get the fraud case adjourned pending the final decision on DLA. If we won the DLA appeal, there would be no case to answer on fraud. It took months and several very stressful appearances at court for adjournments on the fraud case, but we finally won the DLA case: no overpayment, no withdrawal of entitlement, full refund. Brilliant. However, inexplicably, Catherine still had to attend a final fraud hearing. At court we were shocked that the DWP solicitor had no knowledge of DLA or of the appeal system. I had to explain what Catherine’s decision meant, that she was entitled to DLA and always had been. Although the solicitor didn't really understand, he supported an adjournment. In the end, the DWP dropped the case.
What this case taught me is that information is power. Without advice, Catherine might have gone to prison, or at least been fined. She would have lost her job. Her mental health, already seriously affected by her experience, would have deteriorated. Our knowledge prevented all this from happening and enabled Catherine to rebalance things in her favour against a bureaucratic legal system that she couldn’t have navigated on her own. She was incredibly relieved and grateful for our help.
As I approach retirement next year and reflect on my 40 years of work with Citizens Advice, I have to say that it’s brilliant to work for an organisation that can do what we did for Catherine, and for so many other people in complex and challenging situations. And it can do it because of its values.
Anindita Sarkar
Once upon a time, a woman and her husband landed at London Heathrow. They had a suitcase with them and boxes and boxes of dreams. The woman was well educated and independent, having worked in Mumbai as an auditor. She was very keen to be just as independent in the UK – but she found sometimes she could not quite understand what was being said. This was strange as she was fluent in English, and it meant she was hesitant to be as communicative as she would have liked.
In the early days, the pregnant, hormonal me – for the woman was me – was very stroppy with the cafe owner who kept asking “drink in or takeaway?” I was quite clearly asking for “tea in a paper cup”! I would say no when asked if I liked my tea “white”, then find it strange there was no milk. I have since found that every country has its slangs and idioms and the spoken word is different from textbook language. I mimed a lot and got by, but conversation over the phone was a nightmare as the person at the other end could not readily clock my clueless expression. As a result, I refused to speak on the phone at all for my first few months in the UK, even to 111 or the GP.
But I was keen to integrate and not stand out. Emboldened by the warm welcome into the community from neighbours, the local toddler group and others, I did settle in, and wanted to help others as I had been helped. I joined a local charity as a trustee, where I had no problems with my responsibilities. But I always thought I did not understand the need very well – especially when case studies (anonymous, of course) were presented to the board. These invariably included terms I was not familiar with, like ‘UC’, ‘family worker’ and ‘child in care’. Again I felt on the edge. I felt I did not understand a large section of the populace.
That was still the case when I applied to volunteer at my local Citizens Advice in 2019. At that time, life events had left me feeling low and I was looking for a way to keep my mind engaged. I did not know very much about Citizens Advice, but the problem-solving element appealed to the mathematician in me. Just as we were about to start training, the country went into lockdown! Luckily, our fantastic trainer delivered very good online lessons. All that learning was the saving grace of that lockdown summer – it made a tough time bearable.
After training, I started on Adviceline. It was humbling and scary, and I still say I saw more of life in those two years than I had in my four score years and some. Each call was different, each call was the same in that there was always a need that needed addressing. I advised a mum who had nothing to eat and a baby was crying in the background – that was heartbreaking. I advised on furlough (remember that?); I advised on UC; sometimes people just wanted a conversation. I’d gone from refusing to speak on the phone to advising in a global pandemic.
There is another side to working at CA – a humorous side. With most clients you ask question after question. I ask about the client, then their partner, then children, then job, then debts, and it goes on. After a while you see the change in yourself. You dismiss it, but then it creeps up. You become professionally nosy. And once you start to be professionally nosy, you unconsciously manifest it in all situations. A workman came to work in my house. We’re talking about extensions and suddenly he tells me how he runs his business, what his children aim to study, what year they are in and that he is currently going through a crisis. I honestly, hand on heart, did not ask him about these things – but I might have manifested it. I am learning to consciously guard against it.
Nosiness isn’t the only quality you develop as an adviser. You develop an unerring instinct to leave no questions unanswered. At lunchtime recently I happened to mention that organisers of a village show had told me my plum jam could not be entered in the “soft fruit jam” category, as plum was not a soft fruit. I queried if that indeed was the case. The next second the good advisers had their phones out, straight onto a “reliable source” – the RHS website – and found that soft fruits are blackberries, blueberries, currants, goji berries, gooseberries, raspberries and strawberries… but not plums. They did this in all of 10 seconds. Like I say, no questions unanswered!
Sometimes, dealing with other people's pain can act as a balm for your own. For me, working at Citizens Advice Reading has been that balm. It has helped me integrate better, helping me connect to and support ALL our local communities – playing a part in bringing hope to diverse, multicultural Reading.