Stories from our users: Louise and her daughter Sam
Stories from our users: Louise and her daughter Sam
Passports, prisons, and the problems facing the people who will benefit from VouchSafe every day.
This is the first in a series of newsletters sharing findings from our user research into VouchSafe.
So many hoops…
A bit about Louise: First and foremost, she is a mum.
Her children span a wide range of ages. She has 4 all together, with her oldest 29 years old and her youngest 6.
Louise's relationships with her older 3 children are difficult. She’s proud of her kids, and points out that she doesn’t regret having her first child at 17.
The only thing she regrets is “getting in with the wrong crowd, or specifically, the wrong man.”
Sam is Louise’s 25 year-old daughter. She expertly carries three mugs of tea from the kitchen worktop to the coffee table.
“Mum used to be a heroin addict. Me and my siblings went to live with my Grandma and Granddad when I was 10. She’s been clean for nearly a decade now.”
We don’t go into much detail, but Sam tells me that the early chapters of Louise’s story start with domestic violence, and culminated in her needing her parents to take care of her children for a number of years.
It’s easy to see that the system has failed Louise, time and time again.
Louise claims Universal Credit. She lives in a 1-bed council flat with her partner and her youngest son. She’s on a waiting list for a bigger place.
I ask her if she remembers what she had to do to claim Universal Credit. She shakes her head.
“I’ve been on it for years. I think I was moved over from the old benefits. Probably had to show my birth certificate, but I couldn’t tell you where that is now.”
While Louise ponders where the document could be, Sam jumps in.
“Mum’s been struggling with this all recently. We’ve been trying to get her a provisional, but there’s so many hoops to jump through.”
“No idea how people afford it …”
One of Louise’s sons, Ben, was found guilty of GBH in 2023. As a result, he’s been sentenced to 8 months in prison.
Sam tells me that her Mum didn’t know what she’d have to do about visiting Ben in prison. It’s been a huge cause of anxiety for Louise. She adds that everything she has been told about what she has to do has come from Ben, on the phone, or from the prison staff.
Her anxiety stems from the first visit she tried to make a visit to see Ben. She was turned away because she didn’t have ID.
The prison staff told her she needed a passport, or at least a provisional driving licence, to visit her son.
Louise has never been abroad: her parents didn’t take her when she was a child, and the difficulties she faced as a young adult mean that she’s never been in a place financially to do a trip abroad. At 45, and with her youngest being 6, she thinks she’s “a long way off needing a passport.”
“Honestly, I’ve got no idea how people afford it. I think I saw it was nearly £100. That’s a lot of food or bills for us.”
Before she’s even considered the paperwork and the countersignatory process, Louise has been priced out of a passport as a form of ID.
So, that leaves the option of a driving licence. And because she doesn’t have a passport, she tells me she has to apply by post.
It’s £43, before you’ve paid for the recommended delivery.
Oh, and she has to buy her birth certificate too. That’s £14.
She considered doing the rush service, but that was an extra £35. She decided Ben will just have to wait longer for a visit from his mum.
All together, she’s paying £63.85. She’s borrowing the money off Sam.
“I don’t really understand all the things I need to be honest. If you’ve got a passport you can just put that in and it’s easy. But Sam is helping me get all the things I need because I don’t have a passport.”
“Mum needs her birth certificate, a letter from Universal Credit, and someone to sign them all. Right now, that’s the hardest part. It’s different to who signs a passport. It’s its own list.”
It doesn’t have to be this way
It’s not surprising that Louise didn’t know she needed ID to visit someone in prison. When you request a prison visit on GOV.UK, it doesn’t say you need one.
When we need to prove our identity, “ID only being equal to a passport or driving licence” is so ingrained in our national psyche that even officials rarely scrutinise it.
Louise is one of millions of people in the UK alone who face near-impossible struggles and are locked out of vital services, like visiting a loved one in prison. It’s for want of basic ID, and the straightforward means to get one. With a service like VouchSafe, Louise would be able to prove her identity at a fraction of the hassle and cost.
If you know someone who might be helped by a service like VouchSafe, please put them in touch with us. We want to hear as many stories as we can to make it work for as many people as possible: vouchsafe@interrobang.coop
Names have been changed