Gosport student is now a teacher after college course saved her from mental health struggles

Hannah, now 40, was on benefits and struggling with mental health issues at 22 when she decided she wanted to make a career for herself. She took a two-year Access to Higher Education course in psychology to enable her to go on and study for a degree in the subject at the University of Portsmouth.

‘I had been at a very prestigious boarding school until I was 16 and had got good GCSEs but I went off the rails. I ended up pregnant at 18 and on my own and although I had a good support network from my family my mental health really suffered and I was drinking as well,’ she said.

‘I loved the course, being back in the classroom and I really loved learning. I already had purpose as a mum to my daughter Faith but it gave me some self-identity.’

She went on to the university in 2005 but after completing her degree she never had a chance to use it. ‘I was swept off my feet, fell in love and got married,’ she said.

The marriage turned sour and Hannah, by now with a second daughter, was still struggling again with her mental health and her self-esteem. In 2010, feeling vulnerable and lacking in confidence, she saw free community learning courses at the Nimrod Centre in Rowner. That led to teaching qualifications and eventually a permanent job teaching psychology at Gosport’s Adult Community College – the very same course she had studied herself 12 years earlier.

Now she is also running a number of social sciences courses for adults at the college, which is run at a separate part of the St Vincent College site, including criminal investigation, criminal justice, criminology, forensics and forensic psychology.

‘Someone once told me that if you find a job you love you’ll never work a day in your life again,’ said Hannah, who in 2016 went back to the university and graduated as a fully-fledged teacher.Community college manager Tracey Strong said: ‘Hannah is an inspiration to her students and her colleagues because she loves learning and is living proof of the doors it can open for people.’