Holding onto the dream: Sheree O'Neil

By any measure you might consider, Sheree O'Neil has certainly had a difficult, eventful and challenging couple of years. 

Shortly before she was due to start her Access course, she lost her older brother, suddenly and unexpectedly, to sepsis, Then, four weeks later, her father went missing on the day of her brother's funeral. He had been taken ill, had to spend six weeks in hospital, and later died. 

At around that time, her mother was diagnosed with bladder cancer. Then her landlord decided to sell their home, and she and her five children were evicted and made homeless. The local council put all six of them into a hotel room, where they stayed, without basic kitchen facilities, for nearly a month. They were then moved into a small flat, where she had to sleep on the floor. 

Yet, during all of that, she never gave up on her dream. She'd always wanted to be a nurse. 

"Ever since I was a little girl, I just loved caring for people," she says. "I always wanted to help. I've wanted to go into Nursing for as long as I can remember. I felt like I was made to be a nurse." 

She hadn't been able to follow that dream until she'd reached her mid-30s, when her children were all in school and she was able to return to college and complete the GCSEs she needed to progress onto her Access course. 

"Bringing up five children, with all their cuts and bruises and fevers, I guess I'd been like a nurse a lot of that time anyway," she adds.

Sheree studied for her Access to Higher Education Diploma at USP College in Essex. She has now progressed onto the first year of a Nursing degree at Anglia Ruskin University, and is continuing to enjoy and to do well in her studies. She's currently working on a placement on a stroke ward. 

She says the support she received on her Access to HE course helped her through her most difficult days. 

"My tutor on the course was unreal," she says. I couldn't have got through it without her. And the college were supportive in every way they could have been." 

She has recently been diagnosed with dyslexia, and says, that, again, her tutors at the college and now those at university have helped her achieve her best results in her studies. 

"I absolutely loved the Access course," she says. "It was hard work but it was really rewarding. And now I love my studies at university. It's hard work and exhausting. I'm currently putting in 42 hours a week, and then coming home at the end of each day and being a mum. But it's incredibly rewarding."  

In April, Sheree visited the Palace of Westminster to receive an award for her outstanding commitment to study, at this year's Keith Fletcher Awards. 

Named in memory of Keith Fletcher, a passionate advocate of adult learning, these awards honour the achievements of Access to HE students who have overcome significant challenges to demonstrate outstanding academic performance and commitment to their studies. 

Hearing about her award, her local MP got in touch with her and contacted the local council, who have now relocated Sheree and her family into a more suitable home. 

And so, her advice now to anyone thinking about starting an Access course is that they should just "do it". 

"It will push you and maybe frustrate you," she says. "But it will reward you more than any work you've ever done before. If I can get through it, and pass and progress, then so can you."