“Hello?” – a monotone voice, a noise like sandpaper at the other end of the line, then silence. “Steven?”, I ask, concerned that I have got the wrong number or that I am calling at the wrong time. “Yeah?” And so we start like this, in monosyllables, and I find myself wishing Steven had agreed to meet in person where I imagine conversational props and opportunities to connect might have been more readily available. Telephone interviews can be so impersonal.

Steven coughs and clears his throat frequently, and he speaks so fast that I have to ask him to repeat himself often. But we judder along for the next hour or so, awkwardly, stiltedly, and he tells his story – ostensibly one of problem debt, but more fundamentally one of growing up without the support necessary to weather even the smallest of financial storms.

Until the age of six, Steven had been living with his mother, father and older brother, but his parents’ marriage was an unhappy one and around the time of his seventh birthday his father left. Shortly afterwards, his mother’s new partner moved in, bringing a host of addictions and a violent streak into the family home. Steven’s mother, now dealing with her own addictions and ill-health, began to neglect her children and they were placed with a foster family – an arrangement intended to be temporary but one that became a defining feature of Steven’s childhood.

Steven and his brother moved from one foster family to another, and when Steven was 10, after numerous failed placements, the boys were split up; they fought endlessly and when Steven was hospitalised after his collar bone was broken by his brother, a decision was made to place them with different families.

Over the next four years, Steven lived with 12 foster carers. When he was 14 he was moved into a residential care home – a last resort for young people who have not settled in family-based care. At the age of 17, Steven left the care home and stayed in a respite unit for a few months before moving into a hostel. After a year in the hostel he moved into accommodation designed to bridge the gap between institutional care and independent living – a half-way house of sorts.