TOM
14 year-old Tom was referred for Pastoral Mentoring when his mum told the school that they were having lots of arguments at home and she thought these were because he was struggling with the acrimonious separation between herself and Tom’s dad. Tom’s dad had been physically abusive to her and Tom had witnessed this.
Initially Tom found it hard to open up. Gradually, he started to share some of the difficult emotions around the traumatic events at home, which included his dad having strangled Tom when Tom had tried to protect his mum.
The sessions helped Tom to talk about how he felt towards his dad, his mum and himself as a result of what had happened. He worked through sadness, anger and fear that he would not “get over” his dad having physically hurt him and his mum, and that he was worried he was like his dad in not being able to control his anger.
The work looked at building his confidence as well as positive ways to express anger and sadness, and at forgiving his dad so that Tom could let go and feel freer to move on from the things in the past.
By the end of the mentoring Tom’s reoccurring dreams of his dad throttling him had disappeared and he was able to sleep well again. In his feedback sheet Tom said “I now feel hopeful for the future.”
*Names have been changed and models have been used to protect the identity of young people.