Christmas can be a challenging time in normal circumstances, but if you’re homeless or have a housing problem it can be especially difficult. ‘What’s happening for people is that they’re struggling, they’re under a lot of strain, pressure, and stress. And Christmas just adds to that for some people,’ Shelter Sheffield hub manager Tracey Nathan explains. ‘It almost puts a spotlight on the difficult situation in which they are living, because it’s a time when you’re meant to be happy, … Read more
Tag: face-to-face services
Shelter Lancashire: our specialist debt and benefits advice service
Over the last few years, demand for housing advice has dramatically risen in Lancashire. Three years ago, Shelter’s Blackburn based service was seeing around eight people a day, now they see around 68 people a day. This year, on average, 10 people experiencing homelessness come to Shelter Lancashire every week looking for advice, compared to one or two in the years before.
We are currently the only housing specialist in Lancashire and we’ve only seen the hardships that people who … Read more
Will you keep a good thing going?
Paddy turned his life around, going from homelessness and addiction to working for Shelter. This happened because of Shelter’s peer mentoring programme. Now we need your help to keep a good thing going, by supporting this programme so that more people can help themselves to get off the street.
Paddy was living on the streets of Birmingham for five years and had a serious addiction to heroin and alcohol. Now he works for Shelter helping people with the problems he … Read more
Shelter Dorset: the power of a makeover
Volunteers for Shelter Dorset have been hard at work doing hub and home makeovers. In the most recent home makeover, volunteers helped a family who’d been living in temporary accommodation settle into their new home by doing decorating and DIY.
‘It makes such a big difference to our service users,’ hub manager Kate Parker said. ‘It’s about making the house a home.’
The makeover is thanks to B&Q employees, who volunteer for Shelter as part of our corporate partnership. 14 … Read more
Partnerships are key for Shelter Norwich
Saturday 6 July was Norwich’s Lord Mayor’s Celebration, a parade through centre of Norwich that included dancers, musicians, performers, floats and puppets. This year, pride of place at the front of the procession was taken by the Norwich Financial Inclusion Consortium, a group of charities that includes Shelter Norwich.
The Norwich Financial Inclusion Consortium led the parade because they were named the Lord Mayor and Sheriff’s Civic Charity of the Year, due to the consortium’s work helping people with a … Read more
How co-production creates opportunities for all
Co-production brings people who use services together with the organisations that provide those services to shape how they should be delivered. It’s valuable both for organisations and for the people who use its services – and that’s why at Inspiring Change Manchester (ICM), it’s at the heart how we operate.
A few years ago, the word co-production might’ve been mentioned in passing. Services and organisations might have put some service user representation on panels at events or may have asked … Read more
WELLcome Home: giving patients somewhere to recover
Funded by the Big Lottery’s Help Through Crisis scheme and in partnership with Birmingham Mind, our WELLcome Home services provide outcome-focused support to individuals and their families. The aim is to help them reconnect to their accommodation and community after a stay as an inpatient.
We’re fast approaching the service’s fourth year, so it feels like an appropriate time to share another success story.
Imagine not being able to take your baby home from hospital because you have nowhere to … Read more
Shelter Thames Valley: spotlight on our new Hub
Shelter’s Thames Valley office launched as our newest hub on 1 April, and we marked the occasion with a launch party and open day. ‘We threw it open to our service users, who came along and were absolutely fantastic, and to other partner agencies,’ service manager Jackqueline Hauxwell said. ‘We ensured that people could meet and mingle with the team.’
The Thames Valley Hub is located in the Council for Voluntary Services (CVS) Building at 27 Church Street, Slough. This … Read more
Reshaping our Local Advice Services offering
As we described in a previous post, a key finding of our initial design research was the lack of clarity around Shelter’s service offering. One of our aims is to simplify the experience for users seeking help from Shelter. The Local Services redesign has been a challenging – yet useful – project that has helped us move closer to this goal.
Last year we were asked to look at the part of our website dedicated to displaying … Read more