Stephen story: To Crack a Nut
This blog is a space for real stories from parents who’ve been through it — judged, overlooked, passed around from desk to desk — and are now standing tall, using their voices to create change. Through PAN Cymru , we’ve found more than just support — we’ve found a platform. A place to prove ourselves, speak our truth, and be part of something bigger. For many of us, it started with wanting to do better for our children. Along the way, we found confidence, community, and the power to influence the very systems that once shut us out. This blog is about that journey. It’s about pride, progress, and making sure no one feels like just a number. We’re building bridges between parents and professionals, challenging the status quo, and showing what’s possible when lived experience leads the way.
4/13/20253 min read
Can you tell me a bit about your background and how you came to get involved in PAN?
Yeah, I had a phone call out of the blue one day from my children's old social worker. She said that she had spoken to you at one of the team meetings or something, and she thought it'd be really good for me, and would I be interested in speaking to you and get involved in this (PAN).
I didn’t have a clue what this was about. My main objective was just to educate myself, learn some things and try and progress me with my children.
Because at that point I was on the start of my new journey, so to speak. So, yeah, that's how I got involved and spoke to you. A couple of years later I'm still in.
Thinking back over the last 12 months, what good or bad changes have come about as a result of your involvement with PAN?
A feeling of pride, a sense of pride with the help we have given to parents and seeing how far they've come. There’s a lot of pride there, when we see the work we are doing. It's also like I said at the beginning, it was just educating myself, trying to get somewhere with me and my children.
So I think it gave me the platform where I've been able to get across to social services, management, and the things that got me. I can prove myself basically.
Because before that, it had just fallen on deaf ears, every meeting that were trying to progress, it wasn’t part of the plan, they were saying, go away.
So PAN kind of gave me a kind of platform where I've been able to prove myself. In these meetings I can argue my case, and I got some something behind me. And because obviously I work full time as well as PAN, I haven’t got time to be up to no good.
So I think I get that message from PAN. PAN has given me a platform to be able to prove myself. So yeah, that, and yet I’m hoping, because there's still a long way to go in my case with social workers, I’m hoping I can influence change and use my case as a benchmark.
Because I truly believe, I'm not the only parent who has made massive changes to their life and ain’t getting anywhere. At the end of the day, I'm fully capable of being a parent, it's just a fight all the way. If I can get somewhere and make change so others can benefit from it, then yeah, that's my goal, and using my case as a benchmark, hopefully.
Of all the changes you have identified, which one is the most significant to you?
Well, as much as I'd like to check pride up there, because there is sense of immense pride, and not just with the Cafés but with everything we do, it’s probably being given a platform to prove myself, because that was my main objective - to educate and prove myself so I can progress for my children and get somewhere. So yeah, that's probably going to be the platform.
Regarding the most significant change you've chosen, can you say a little bit more about what it was like before?
Before, like I said, I was probably just a number, passing through someone's table. I saw my children for an hour a month for supervised contact and that didn't look like it was going to change anytime soon. That was before. And now I see I see my children every other Saturday.
I work every other weekend anyway. I pick them up in the morning, it’s unsupervised, I drop them back later in the evening.
So it’s that, and the help and support from the professionals, yourself and Anna. I would never have had that recognition. I mean, I wouldn't have had that Saturday without PAN, without everyone’s help, Belinda, Manja, every one of you have helped. You’ve helped me, put me in front of people where I'm not a number no more.
They are all probably fed up of me. It gave me the platform, I’ve got them all in my emails now. If I’m not happy I’m on it. It’s been massive. It’s the platform I’ve been given, in front of all the senior management, I don’t know how many conferences, things like that, getting the recognition. It’s just a relief, not to be passed off.
It just seemed like forever, I was just passed to someone's desk, like just a number so the fact now is that I am recognised, and I don’t miss a trick. Even management will get involved now, because they know I’m questioning it. So it’s the platform I’ve been given.