Room to breathe: The impact of guardianship
As part of our 15th birthday series, we’re speaking to guardians about the impact guardianship has had on their lives. For every blog we post, we’ll make a £50 donation to a charity of the guardian’s choice.
Some people take their time with big decisions. For Aurelia, one of our guardians in Hounslow, it was a year and a half from first hearing about Dot Dot Dot until she applied. She wanted to understand exactly what she was signing up for – the difference between a tenancy and a licence, the responsibilities, the reality of it.
What finally tipped it for her was a house with a garden.
A room of one’s own
Aurelia had been living at her mum’s, and before that, in a five-person house share. For someone with sensory needs, the noise and constant company of shared living had been difficult. “It was challenging,” she says. “I wanted to live by myself, affordably. In London, that felt almost impossible.”
Guardianship made it possible. And the garden really sealed the deal: “It feels like a luxury, although it really shouldn’t be” Aurelia tells us.
Building an ecosystem
Aurelia’s transformed the garden since moving in. There’s a pond now, a mini meadow and a bee hotel. She’s been deliberately, carefully building an ecosystem – somewhere for animals to find food and water, especially during hot summers.
“I saw a dragonfly,” she says. “I’d created something. A habitat.” She enjoys spending time out there every day. It’s become central to her wellbeing. It’s a counterbalance to city life that she hadn’t quite anticipated when she first signed up. Nearby Hounslow Heath has added to that. “I see bunnies and muntjac deer all the time. Even adders.”
Aurelia's micropond
Coming home
The move also brought an unexpected reunion. The area Aurelia has relocated to was one she’d grown up near, and through her monthly volunteering she’s reconnected with a community she already had roots in.
Inside the house, something has shifted too. “I have more space in my brain to be creative,” she says. “I’m drawing more. Living alone, without other people around, has given me room to breathe.”
Worth the wait
Aurelia remembers the first morning she woke up in the new place after an exhausting moving day.
“If Dot Dot Dot hadn’t existed,” she says, “I’d have ended up in another house share. On the outskirts of London. Still waiting.”
For anyone weighing it up the way she once did, she has straightforward advice: “Give Dot Dot Dot a call. They answered every question I had. It felt risky because I’d never done it before, but it also just felt just right.”
Aurelia’s donation goes to Unicef’s Gaza appeal for children in crisis.
