This is a blog post that was written up by our very own DrKieran. I asked around the Discord server for people to write up what being a Healthy Gamer meant to them and he wrote this up. Very proud to have him being a part of our community and his views on #HealthyGamer. It makes me really happy to see more stuff on the mental side of being a HealthyGamer! -RealBlankspace
My name is Kieran, I may not be the most physically fit however that doesn’t put me off representing myself as a Healthy Gamer as I believe a healthy mind set is also a key factor in living a healthy lifestyle.
When I was born I lived with my mum for only a year before I was taken away from her and given to my nan for my own safety, because of this I never really grew up in the stable environment of having a mother and father there to guide you but I had the next best thing my nan, she brought up her own kids and then took on the mammoth task of taking care of me and my sister even though we were both so young.
However she got support from an awesome charity organization known as P.A.D.A ( Parents Against Drug Abuse ) and was set up to help families who are having a hard time and to help protect children whose parents are heavy drug users or no longer with their parents and this is where my nan and I would find people who we felt a connection with and no longer felt alone in our situation as we now had a support network and this support network is one that has shaped me for the better.
During my time at P.A.D.A we noticed more and more people would show up in the situation that was very similar to myself, who from an early age were sent to live with their grandparents and this became very obvious within the charity and this would be the first stepping stone for me to start my volunteer experience at the charity because I was at the age where I could now help others who were much younger than me deal with all the stuff I had to go though and I made it so they weren’t alone.
P.A.D.A went through many changes and eventually changed its name to Kinship Carers to closely represent what the charity had now become, A safe place for grandparents to take their grandchildren and have a support network set up for them but this wasn’t good enough for me and a few others in the same age range as me, we wanted change so that charities like the one I now belong to wouldn’t need to exist as the support should already be there for them without the need for us to be their sole lifeline in times of need.
A group of six other young adults with myself included took our plight to local government and set up the first national young persons conference devoted to the betterment of children who go through a form of kinship and to get the government to establish support networks for them as they do with other children in social services, be they adopted, fostered or a kinship child there would be support for them and they wouldn’t have to feel alone as there would be a lifeline given to them the second they become part of the kinship community.
The group of us took this very seriously and have raised points to anyone who can make change so that they do make the changes needed as they had forced the kinship position on so many families and there was no help for them apart from our charity, we took on our local government in this conference and presented the fundamental facts to them as to how much they could help families and how it can be cost effective for themselves which would also help them out as there was local government cuts at the time of our conference so they were very strapped for money.
The conference ended with many of us getting written pledges from many of the people we invited including local PMs and governing bodies of social services and schools and slowly with our constant goal of equality for all children we hope we can improve the lives of all of these kids without them feeling outcast from the system that should be there to support them every step of the way.
My road is not an easy one but with my mindset of staying positive and challenges things I think are wrong and unjust I feel like I can accomplish anything I set my mind to and my work for kinship carers comes across this way as there is always room for improvement but I will always strive to get the most out of something I can and making sure I stay positive and strong and be a beacon for others.