Homeless project celebrates 10 years of helping young people
A project set up to support young homeless people is celebrating ten years of helping people aged between 16 and 25 turn their lives around.
Hereford-based Supported Housing for Young People Project (SHYPP) has seen 3,441 young people come through the project since it was set up in 2001.
SHYPP was launched a decade ago by WM Housing Group to support 16 to 25 year olds who had difficulties living independently. Since then the project has helped more than 3,000 people avoid homelessness, prison and debt.
On Friday, January 28, current and former SHYPP service users came together at the Bridge Street office to celebrate how the project has helped so many young people turn their lives around over the years.
Ex-service user Hugo Suggs, aged 20, is still involved with the project by volunteering his time to help young homeless people in the position he found himself in two years ago.
“I split up from my ex partner and it made me homeless. SHYPP put me in emergency overnight accommodation, then temporary accommodation before I bid on a flat and successfully got it. I also accessed its volunteering, training and counselling services,” said Hugo.
He added: “If it wasn’t for SHYPP I wouldn’t be here now, the project saved my life. They always listened to me and offered me help when I needed it.
“The project has inspired me to become a youth worker so I can help other young people in similar positions to where I was.”
The award-winning project has set up life skills coaching, training and volunteering opportunities for young people. These include Future Jobs Funding to help 70 young people into work, a school homeless prevention project involving volunteer mentors from the project educating school pupils on the risk of becoming homeless, a media project for service users to learn new skills to help them gain employment, and student placements in social work, counselling, occupational therapy and youth work.
Its specialist accommodation includes three foyers, which provide self-contained and shared accommodation for young people, housing and support for young people leaving care, a shared house and ‘move on’ flats for young people leaving the project but still needing some support.
As well as providing accommodation with different levels of support, every week SHYPP gives outreach support to hundreds of young parents, tenants, 16 and 17 year olds in B&B accommodation and people needing emergency accommodation.
Head of SHYPP Catherine Collis said: “From the outset SHYPP has aimed to meet the needs and aspirations of each young person by supporting them to live independently by working with pride, integrity and in partnership. |
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From left, Cassie Preece, Lewis Anpheltt, Hugo Sugg, Sarah Buchanan, Gemma Bell, Carol Hilwyn and Sorrell Ord celebrate 10 years of the supported housing project for young homeless people in Herefordshire.
SHYPP service users and ex-service users and staff celebrated 10 years of the supported housing project to help young homeless people in Herefordshire.
“In the last two years referrals have been rising and have topped 800 young people per year. More than 50 per cent of these have been 16 and 17 year olds. Without SHYPP these young people would be without a home, support to have another chance in life and even worse may be in prison.”
SHYPP scooped a national award in 2010 for ‘Best Practice in delivery of Supporting People Services’.
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Notes to editors
Accommodation Provided by SHYPP
• Hereford Foyer, 8 shared rooms and 4 self contained flats
• Leominster Foyer, a mixture of 8 shared & self contained units
• Ross Foyer, 9 shared rooms
• 7 units of accommodation and support for young people leaving care (SHAC)
• 8 self contained ‘Move on flats’
Outreach Support
• Housing Related Support for 50 -100 young parents (per week)
• Outreach Service to 60 -100 young tenants across Hereford (per week)
• Duty / Crisis Housing Support 25 – 50 (per week) & work with 16 & 17 year olds in B&B
• Nightstop (using volunteer hosts to provide emergency accommodation)
SHYPP’s Life Skills, training and volunteering work
• Future Jobs Fund supporting 70 young people into work
• V Volunteer project for young people and commitment to numerous adult volunteers
• City & Guilds Learning Power Awards – certified portfolio to capture learning from experiences of homelessness
• Schools homeless prevention project – using volunteer mentors to educate school age pupils on the risks of homelessness and provide advice on harm reduction
• Sports projects – football, boxer-cise, running, walking etc
• Healthy living programmes & champions in foyers –
• Peer Mentoring, Life Coaching & Life Skills training
• Chelsea Flower Show – places of change garden designed by young people, silver medal winner
• Media Project – The Media SHYPP – social enterprise, volunteering, peer mentor training, films, facebook, podcasts, blogs and websites
• Working Assets – Social Enterprise and improving young people skills and assets
• Act10n programme, 10 week programme for young people Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET)
• Counselling placements – providing free counselling to young people in need
• Student placements - social work, counseling, occupational therapy, youth work, social welfare students and police placements
• Bridge Street drop-in centre for advice and training
• Youth Advisory Board (YAB) to assist SHYPP’s decision making
• Supported Lodgings for 16/17yr olds
• Specialist 16/17 homeless prevention worker
Multi agency and strategic work - SHYPP takes an active role within Herefordshire:
Chair of the Supporting People Forum & young person’s homelessness group. Director & member of The Alliance (of third sector). Member of Herefordshire Children’s Trust, Homelessness Strategy Implementation Group; Herefordshire Homeless Forum, Targeted Youth Support, locality teams (and many others!) SHYPP is involved with regional and national housing and Foyer Federation networks.
Staff – SHYPP employ 30 staff. In a recent survey we had a 98% employee engagement score, compared to the national average of 81%.
Quality - Supporting People Quality Assessment Framework – SHYPP are working at Level B/A.
TPAS – 2010 National Winner for ‘Best Practice in delivery of Supporting People services.
Foyer Federation – accredited since 2003.
WM Housing Group, based in Bromsgrove, manages approximately 23,500 homes across the West Midlands, Herefordshire and Worcestershire.
The group is structured to facilitate local accountability and the provision of high quality local services.
Founded in 1998, the group consists of Whitefriars Housing, Harden Housing Association, Nexus Housing, Kemble Housing and Herefordshire Supported Housing for Young People Project (SHYPP).
WM Housing Group is a development partner with the Homes and Communities Agency. It is the lead member of the Spectrum Development Partnership that consists of Advance Housing Association, Bromsgrove District Housing Trust, Central Borders Housing Group, Heantun Housing Association, Herefordshire Housing, Nehemiah UCHA, Stafford and Rural Homes, Severnside Housing and Solihull Community Housing.
For further information please contact Lucy Beaumont or Nikki Cheung, at The Bridge Group, on 024 7656 0440, or l.beaumont@bridge-group.co.uk