Building Stability in Support

This is the sixth post in our ‘Diary of an estranged Briton’, detailing the journey taken by our Vice Chair, Lloyd Hobbard-Mitchell, his wife, Susi and their son, Sebastian.

Alongside the ad hoc taxi driving, another important part of this journey was getting a job as a Support Worker in January 2025.

Becoming a Support Worker there was more than just employment. It gave shape, routine and credibility to a period of life that had otherwise felt uncertain. At a time when I needed to rebuild quickly, this role became central to that effort.

The work itself mattered. Supporting people living with mental health needs, learning difficulties, and acquired brain injuries is not casual work. It asks something of you. It requires patience, consistency, emotional steadiness, observation, humanity and resilience. It brings you close to people whose lives may already have been shaped by trauma, exclusion or profound challenge.

In that sense, the role resonated deeply with many of the values I have carried through much of my working life. Different setting, different organisation, but still that familiar thread of trying to be useful where life is complex and where vulnerability is real.

It also came at a crucial time in practical terms. This was the employment that would ultimately help establish that I met the Minimum Income Requirement. There is something almost strange about that when you think about it. The same job that asked me to support others in vulnerable circumstances was also the job that helped me navigate my own family’s precarious position within the immigration system.

Work can do that. It can be both service and survival!

I do not want to romanticise the period. I was still living with the emotional strain of separation. I was still carrying the uncertainty of whether all this effort would be enough. But working for a private care company brought a degree of solidity. It meant payslips. It meant banked salary payments. It meant a contract, a P60, an employer letter — all the things the visa system recognises more readily than longing, loyalty or the ordinary fact of family life.

There is an irony in that, too. The state often struggles to measure what matters most, but it can count a payslip perfectly.

Still, by this stage I had come to accept that if the system required documentation, then documentation I would provide. Every rota worked, every shift completed, every salary payment received was part of a larger story. Not just employment, but evidence. Not just labour, but proof of intention and stability.

My full time job became one of the anchors of this whole process. It helped transform the journey from something hopeful into something demonstrable.

That matters when you are trying to bring people home.

Lloyd Hobbard-Mitchell

The Rest of the Diary of an Estranged Briton

When Politics Hits Home This is the first post in our ‘Diary of an estranged…

The Day I Left This is the second post in our ‘Diary of an estranged…

The Search for Work This is the third post in our ‘Diary of an estranged…

Held Together by Others This is the forth post in our ‘Diary of an estranged…

Driving to Stand Still This is the fifth post in our ‘Diary of an estranged…

Building Stability in Support This is the sixth post in our ‘Diary of an estranged…

The Quiet Before This is the seventh post in our ‘Diary of an estranged Briton’,…

The System Reveals This is the eighth post in our ‘Diary of an estranged Briton’,…

The Day of Submission This is the ninth post in our ‘Diary of an estranged…

The Waiting This is the tenth post in our ‘Diary of an estranged Briton’, detailing…

The Cost of Provinga Family This is the eleventh post in our ‘Diary of an…

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