St Basils is awarded contract to prevent Youth Homelessness in North Worcestershire
St Basils Housing Association for young people, the ‘National Centre of Excellence’ in preventing youth homelessness, has been awarded a £1.5m Supporting People 3 year contract, to provide a range of housing related support services across the North Worcestershire region. We are currently recruiting the management and staff for the new services which will be rolled out across the region from September 09.
Our prevention services
A major part of the work will be delivering services that prevent young people from leaving home before they are ready and we will use our innovative and proven Schools Training and Mentoring Programme ‘STaMP’ to deliver these sessions in schools. Uniquely the service is provided by St Basils trained Peer Educators, young people with direct experience of homelessness who share their own personal perspective on why it is best to stay at home and how to get help and support should you have issues or problems. After the sessions the young people usuallychange their minds about the best age to leave home from 16 to 19+. We also provide direct mentoring services in schools.
We aim to improve, develop and provide: early intervention; peer mentoring; prevention work with families and mediation for young people; supported lodgings schemes; and floating support for those who have moved into their own tenancies.
Lack of supported accommodation
Another major gap in provision is the lack of supported accommodation for young people and two foyers are being built by West Mercia Housing Association to address this in Bromsgrove and Kidderminster. St Basils will deliver the support services in the two foyers for young people who will all come from these areas.
Bromsgrove Foyer is about to be built and St Basils will be responsible for all the services that will be provided there for Bromsgrove young people. The foyer will be staffed 24 hours a day it will have a reception area, 15 high quality self contained apartments, a training room, communal activity area, rooms for one-to-one work and interviews, plus staff quarters and offices.
Signing up to training and employment.
As part of the tenancy conditions young people are required to take up training or employment opportunities which are on offer whilst living at the foyer Therefore all residents have expressed a desire and commitment to self improvement. If they have not then they are not accepted as residents. This is the model which we will be using in the 2 new developments, Bromsgrove Foyer and Kidderminster Foyer.
St Basils developed the very first foyer to be opened in Birmingham in 1994 and has been running all 24 of its schemes under foyer principle which ensures that everyone who lives with us takes up education, employment and or training. To do this we provide training facilities on site and our Learning Skills and Work staff ensure full access to support, to re-engage young people and to work towards gaining life skills and improving their chances of employability.
One ex-resident recently wrote to our Foyer Manager and had this to say:-
“I would like to say thank you to Edmonds Court staff and management for all the support I received during my residence at the project. Thank you for always going that extra mile. I now work for the N.H.S. and had it not been for the help I received I strongly believe I would not be where I am today.” Kevin H.
For more information about St Basils please go to our website www.stbasils.org.uk ENDS
Contact Catherine Clarke, 0121-772-9635 email Catherine.clarke@stbasils.org.uk
