John is 40 and is married with two young children. He works as a self-employed joiner and also manages a small farm. He invested a lot on modernising the farm and had hire purchase agreements for machinery as well as bank loans. Due to the economic downturn, John’s income from his joinery business dropped considerably.

He has fallen behind on his loan and mortgage payments and his farm was at risk. He had become increasingly worried, was feeling depressed and had been contemplating suicide. He contacted Rural Support because he was anxious and frightened.

What did Rural Support do?

• One of our counsellors worked with John to deal with his thoughts of suicide and to help him get support from his GP and other organisations.
• A volunteer with technical, farming expertise helped John to find ways of reducing costs and improving income from his farm.
• We put John in touch with the Citizens’ Advice Bureau’s debt counselling service.  This service helped John come up with a realistic and manageable plan for dealing with his debt.
• We supported John throughout the process and also made sure that he had contact details for other organisations such as Lifeline and the Samaritans.