For the first two months of Svetlana’s daughter’s life, the pair couch-surfed and lived on the streets. Granted public housing, Svetlana then worked to “stabilise” herself and slowly form “new ties”. A “former addict”, she had been “clean and sober for six years”.
Her daughter faced speech delays, and with help from a social service, Svetlana had been focused on supporting her, deciding to keep her at preschool for an additional year. Svetlana’s father, who has dementia, had lately moved to an aged care facility, leaving her mother “all alone” and “very sick”.
