Charlotte Webb, a Wolverhampton based illustrator and recovery artist, is a passionate supporter of the Good Shepherd. She has delivered workshops for Good Shepherd’s Art Recovery Group, facilitated creative projects and shared her personal journey during September’s Recovery Month. Charlotte is now delivering Creative Connections programme on behalf of Wolverhampton Art Gallery during the Good Shepherd’s family pantry sessions.
Charlotte recently brought her artistic skills to the Good Shepherd’s social enterprise café, Pomegranate, by painting its window with a Christmas design to help make it more eye-catching during the festive season. Any profit made from the café goes directly towards funding the Good Shepherd’s free to access services, making her contribution even more impactful.
Charlotte’s connection with the Good Shepherd began when she was very young. This is her inspiring story:
“On 9 January 1989, my dad was arrested in our Wolverhampton home. My mum had turned him in. It was the hardest decision she’d ever made, but she did it for us – her three children, who had woken up to a Christmas without presents, without a tree, without even a turkey. My dad had gambled away everything we had.
“For years, she’d watched the life she’d built slowly unravel. Our house was sold, our furniture disappeared, and our savings (painstakingly gathered from her shop assistant’s wages) were drained. When she discovered that my dad had forged her signature to empty their joint account, something broke. She chose to act.
“That knock on the door marked the end of their marriage as they knew it. But it also marked the beginning of something else, something that would quietly shape the rest of my life.
“After Mum asked Dad to leave, he had nowhere to go. No money. No home. No plan. What happened next is something I only came to understand years later, through quiet conversations and pieced-together memories.
“Somehow, he found his way to the Good Shepherd. Or maybe, they found him. They didn’t just give him a bed. They gave him a chance. Temporary accommodation at the Crawford Court Hotel. Help managing his addiction. A pathway to stability.
“They sourced social housing for him, a place he would call home for over two decades. They furnished it with donated items, even helped him wrap presents for us that first Christmas apart.
“Dad didn’t stop gambling overnight. He lived on very little, sometimes losing it all. But he was trying. And the Good Shepherd never gave up on him.
“In May 2001, we both started new jobs on the same day. Me, 18 and wide-eyed; him, older and quietly determined. It was his final job, and the beginning of our healing.
“When Dad died in 2015, I found something unexpected in his bank records: no gambling transactions. Just savings. Quiet proof that he’d won the battle he’d fought for decades.
“I believe the Good Shepherd saved my dad. And in doing so, they saved my relationship with him.”
“In 2021, during the second year of my illustration degree, I created a piece of artwork that drew directly from my lived experience of addiction. Toward the end of my time at Carillion (the job I started on the same day as my dad’s final one) I found myself quietly unravelling. Alcohol had become my crutch. What began as a way to quiet the noise and help me relax slowly became a necessity. The grip of addiction took hold before I even realised it.
“I’ve now been sober for eight years. That experience, once a source of shame, has become my superpower for change.
“That artwork caught the eye of Kate Penman, a staff member at the Good Shepherd. She reached out and invited me to be part of the 2021 recovery exhibition. I said yes without hesitation. The exhibition was a huge success, not just professionally, but personally. On launch night, one visitor told me my artwork had completely changed their view on alcoholism. That moment stayed with me. It was the beginning of a beautiful working relationship with the Good Shepherd, and with Kate in particular.
“Since then, I’ve collaborated with Kate to deliver art workshops for others in recovery, people the Good Shepherd continues to support with compassion and care. We’ve worked together on exhibitions, events, and most recently, the National Recovery Walk. Each project has felt like a quiet act of healing.
“It’s a full circle. I was once the child whose father was supported by the Good Shepherd, whose Christmas was saved by their generosity. I became the young adult who rebuilt a relationship with her dad, thanks to the love and dignity they showed him. And now, I’m able to give something back – through lived experience, through art, and through the lens of both a child and an adult who knows what recovery really means.”