I needed to use a food bank after graduating - now I want to end the stigma

I needed to use a food bank after graduating - now I want to end the stigmaImage source, Steven CrichtonImage caption, Steven graduated with a first class honours in psychology with counsellingByFelicity EvansWales money editorPublishedJust nowA therapist who needed to use a food bank to feed his family when he left university is now volunteering to help make the experience easier for others.Steven Crichton, from Pontypridd, Rhondda Cynon Taf, said he and his partner Kat had skipped meals to make sure their children "had full lunch boxes" but visiting the food bank was "way more dignifying" than he had expected.Steven lost his father to suicide when he was six years old and subsequently faced his own mental health issues as well as an addiction to heroin.He said counselling helped him to turn his life around and inspired him to go to university in his thirties to qualify as a therapist, but it was a struggle to make ends meet for a few weeks when his course ended.He now runs his own business and uses his past experiences to help charities, like food banks, make their services more user-friendly.'I'm strong, I'm not weak'Steven said after his dad took his own life, "no one really knew how" to talk to him and he carried the belief that "bad things happen to me" for a long time.He said "shame and stigma" could stop people reaching out for help. But when he went to counselling 26 years after losing his father, he realised it was the right profession for him and went back into education.As a mature student at the University of South Wales, he met his partner and they enjoyed a whirlwind romance."We moved in together in her first year, by the second year we had a baby… on my graduation day I proposed to her," he said.Image source, Steven CrichtonImage caption, Steven proposed to his partner, Kat, on their graduation dayThe family had a tough few weeks after Steven graduated, but the University...