‘I wanted to prove I could rise to a challenge’

Ffion Hughes-Wilkes, 17, Southbourne, Dorset

The worst thing about the pandemic for me was the fact that I didn’t have a routine. My anxiety was very high, I was constantly on edge, and on some days I couldn’t even walk down to the end of the road by myself. So I never went out and I was so het up I had meltdowns over the pettiest little things – it was awful.

That was before the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. I ended up doing DofE with a big bunch of young people in care. We all decided to do the Duke of Edinburgh because we wanted to prove we could rise to a challenge. There’s a stigma saying that young people in care can’t do much, and we wanted to prove that wrong. Just because we have a bad background or whatever, that doesn’t affect anything.

I’m doing my Silver Award at the moment, so I’ve done an expedition, I’m volunteering as a leader with the Guides and I help out with the local Rainbows group once a week. I’ve loved being able to socialise with people. No matter what’s going on in my head, I get distracted by talking to people. It’s been a nice way to get out after lockdown. I’ve been through some troublesome times, and once I started helping others I realised I could pick that out in others as well and I’ve become very supportive. I put others before myself – and helping others helps me.

The people I did DofE with were people who I knew of but never really spoke to a lot. But after our DofE experience we all became friends; we made a group chat which we still use all the time. We all help each other out. Being in care, a lot of us have gone on to different things, so it’s hard to stay in touch, but having the group chat – and having something we’ve all done together to build that strength and community – is great.