We first encountered Dean in 2021, he approached us desperate for help with his addictions and he met all the criteria for a placement on our programme.

However, as happens all too often, we had no direct funding stream in place and whilst we battled to secure said funding Dean became bewildered, disillusioned and in his own words ‘resentful’ towards us. He could not comprehend the barriers in the way of accessing treatment.

We were saying we wanted to help him, which we did, and he was desperate for the help and yet he couldn’t access it, he couldn’t get his head around that and disengaged from us with a bitter taste in his mouth.

Fast forward to August 2023, and a chance meeting with a cracking chap called Gary Doyle up in Edinburgh at the Military Tattoo. Gary has a rich military history and our conversation soon led to the work our charity does with members of the armed forces community. Gary was impressed and asked what problems we faced, believing that the company he works for, Peel Ports Group, may be able to help us out in some way. I began to tell him of our constant battle securing funding for worthy beneficiaries of our programme, and how many applicants became disillusioned and lost hope during the process, Despite finding ourselves in that predicament with countless veterans, for some reason Dean sprung to my mind whilst I was explaining it to Gary. We arranged for Gary to come and visit us and see first hand what we do. After the visit Gary and Peel Ports Group kindly offered to help us out by sponsoring a placement for someone for whom we could not secure funding for. An act of generosity that still blows me away now.

Literally two days after Gary rubber stamped the sponsorship agreement I got a call out of the blue from Dean, again desperate for help, literally begging for a place on our programme as his life had turned from bad to worse. The spookiness of me describing Deans plight ,out of countless other similar cases, and him then calling 48hrs after a pathway had been created was not lost on me.

We were now in a position to offer Dean a place on our programme. A place that he grabbed with both hands. He applied himself, knuckled down and displayed a willingness to do the hard yards that lead to a successful episode of treatment and implementation of positive lifestyle changes.

Dean was made aware of how we could this time offer him a place and insisted on meeting with Gary and colleagues from Peel Ports Group to express his gratitude personally, He invited them to his graduation ceremony to share in his achievement, and the invite was taken up.

Dean has since visited Peel Ports Group at their Port of Liverpool Maritime Centre base as they launched their Employees Armed Forces Network scheme, again expressing gratitude, this time to a wider audience.

After a stint at The Bridge House Project Dean has returned to his family home, continuing to engage with us at Tom Harrison House and has become a valued member of our graduate community, recently taking part in one of our Veteran Experiential Retreats up in Cumbria to further work on himself.

We would like to commend Dean for all the hard work he has put in up to now and for his dedication to continuing his recovery journey.

Our sincere gratitude goes out to Peel Ports Group for supporting our shortfall, this is a great example of what can be achieved outside of the usual funding pathways, an area we are very keen to explore further.

Any person, or organisation, who may be in a position to help, please get in touch, you could just save somebody’s life.