Wyre Forest Nightstop &
Mediation Scheme
Annual Report 2012 -2013
Wyre Forest Nightstop and Mediation Scheme
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Contents
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Aims and objectives
Page 4
What we do
Page 5
What we aim to do in 2014
Page 5
Management Structure
Page 6
Message from the Chair
Page 6
Message from the Co-ordinator
Page 8
Volunteer Co-ordinator
Page 10
Mediation
Page 10
Funding
Page 11
Case Studies
Page 13
Statistics
Page 17
Financial Report
Judith and Julia with the Christmas sweets for the Food Bank
Wyre Forest Nightstop and Mediation Scheme
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Aims and Objectives
The primary aim of Wyre Forest Nightstop and Mediation remains the
provision of safe, emergency accommodation for young people aged 1625 in the homes of trained and approved hosts in the local community. All
other emergency accommodation is located outside of the Wyre Forest.
Without the generosity of our hosts we would be unable to offer
emergency accommodation in the Wyre Forest and we are very grateful
for their continuing willingness to work with us and help a young person
in crisis.
Over the next year we plan to provide more specialist training for our
hosts, in partnership with St Basils and the other Worcestershire
Nightstops and we hope this will provide more support to our hosts when
They are providing a safe place for our young people to stay.
December 2013 saw the opening of the New Foyer in Kidderminster, this
will provide 19 units of accommodation for young people from the Wyre
Forest and will assist them to find employment or training and move
towards independent living. It will be a vital next step on the housing
ladder for many of the young people who start with us at Nightstop. We
look forward to a continuing partnership with St Basil’s who will be
managing the Foyer.
Mediation was an area we started to really develop last year. This is part
of our Lottery funded project and also funded by Wyre Forest District
Council. Work that can prevent homelessness is vital and we will be
prioritising mediation in the coming year.
Work and or training and education along with decent housing are key to
a young person leading a fulfilling life in their community. The Volunteer
for Success Programme that we have delivered for the last two years has
allowed us to offer volunteering opportunities to young people who are
often disenfranchised from their community. The experience they gain
can build their self confidence, teach them new skills and improve their
chances of gaining employment or further education or training. Funding
from the Mid-Counties Coop and the Worcestershire One Hundred Club
has enabled to us to continue this project and we have undertaken some
very worthwhile and enjoyable tasks with the volunteers over the last
year.
Providing Nightstop over a 7 day period is proving to be essential and we
are providing longer Nightstop stays for many young people while they
Wyre Forest Nightstop and Mediation Scheme
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wait for a place in supported accommodation. We hope the next year will
see a reduction in this with the opening of the Foyer providing more
places. We will continue to provide Nightstop over the course of the week,
when required but we will also endeavour to work closely with our partner
agencies to move the young person into appropriate longer-term housing
as quickly as possible.
With the Welfare Reforms starting to take effect we are seeing high
numbers of young people coming to us for food and other essential items,
often due to delays in benefit payment or sanctions applied if they have
been unable to comply with Jobcentre directions. We act as a referral
agent for the Foodbank and aim to continue to support young people to
ensure they do not go without food.
What we do
Wyre Forest Nightstop provides
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Emergency accommodation with volunteer hosts 7 nights a week
Advice and guidance to homeless young people and those who are
at risk of becoming homeless
Referral to partner agencies
Support
Advocacy
Family Mediation
Emergency food, clothes and toiletries
Volunteering opportunities for young people
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What we aim to do in 2014
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Further develop the mediation service and ensure that the service is
well publicised
Continue to provide an emergency nightstop service 7 nights a
week
Work with outlying areas to ensure our service can be accessed by
all young people in need
Provide a drop-in service at venues such as the Youth Café and
Youth House
Recruit and train more volunteers
Work with young people with multiple disadvantage in need of
housing eg ex-offenders returning from prison to the Wyre Forest
Continue to work with the Worcestershire Consortium to provide a
holistic approach to homelessness across the County
Management Structure
Sheilagh Burton - Chair
Fred Mumford - Treasurer
Denise Carson – Secretary
Alan Palmer
Andy Farthing
Sandy Turner
Mandy Collins
Karen Purdy
Joan Booth
Volunteer Hosts
We have 6 hosts.
Wyre Forest Nightstop and Mediation Scheme
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Message from the Chair
This has proved to be another busy year – our referrals remain steady
and we have provided more Nightstop accommodation for longer periods.
We are seeing a high number of young people aged under 18 and we are
providing food, clothes and support as well as somewhere to stay in a lot
of these cases.
Nightstop has continued to develop, funding from Midcounties Coop and
the Worcestershire 100 Club has allowed the successful volunteer
programme to continue. Mediation is in demand and anything we can do
to prevent future homelessness is of great value both to the families
concerned and the greater community.
We are now involved in a consortium with other young person’s agencies
from across Worcestershire and we hope this will enable us to maximise
our strengths in light of the impending funding cuts from the Supporting
People budget.
As a charity Wyre Forest Nightstop is dependent on the generosity of the
community and we are very grateful for all the support we continue to
receive –this can make a huge difference to the lives of our young
people.
I would like to thank Judith and Julia for their continuing hard work and to
all our volunteers a big thank you for helping to make Wyre Forest
Nightstop such a vital local service.
Sheilagh Temblett
Chairperson
Message from the Coordinator
The last year has been very busy as we have begun to further develop the
service across the region. We recruited and trained 3 new hosts and have
been able to offer the Nightstop service over 7 nights a week and during
the weekend in many cases. On a number of occasions we have been able
to provide emergency accommodation to young couples who were
homeless – enabling them to stay together whilst we helped them to
tackle their housing needs provided vital support during a very difficult
period of their lives. We had a total of 323 interventions with 108 young
people.
We provided 25 young people with Nightstop accommodation, varying
from one night’s accommodation to almost 6 weeks. Out of the Nightstop
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referrals 9 were considered to be too high risk for Nightstop and we
helped them to find more suitable accommodation.
The mediation service has been expanding, we have trained 2 new
mediators and we successfully mediated on 8 cases. Timely mediation can
often prevent future homelessness and repairing fractured relationships
can help to provide a stable home for the young person within their
family and community .
Successful funding bids to the Mid- Counties Co-op and the Worcester 100
Club have enabled us to continue with Volunteer for Success, providing
volunteering opportunities to a number of young people, all of whom had
previously used the services of Nightstop.
Over the last year at Nightstop we have seen some changes across the
region
SGS (formerly Connexions) disappeared from Youth House and the
careers and guidance service for young people took on a different format.
As we were based in the same building as SGS we received a number of
referrals from them and would often work very closely with them to
address a young persons needs. However, in spite of the service going we
are still seeing increasing numbers of young people accessing our services
and by retaining our office base at youth House we are well placed for
young people to access us and very close to the Foyer.
Wyre Forest sees the highest number of under 18 homeless young people
across the county. This is reflected in our referrals and about half are
under 18. Working with them can provide a challenge and we work closely
with Children’s Services to ensure they are safe and suitably
accommodated whilst their situation is assessed. We hope that the
opening of the Foyer will mean that this process can happen more quickly
in some cases.
Proposed cuts to the Supporting People budget posed a real threat to the
provision of support services to young, homeless people in the Wyre
Forest and we enlisted the support of our local MP, Mark Garnier, to raise
our concerns at a County Council level. Mark has been very supportive to
Nightstop, he has attended many of our events and offered work
experience opportunities in his office to our volunteers and a trip to
London to the Houses of Parliament. We look forward to continuing to
work with Mark and his office over the next year.
Our Big Lottery funding reaches the 2 year point this June (we secured 3
years funding) and so once again we will be seeking funding to allow
Nightstop to continue the vital work we do into the future.
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We are extremely grateful for the support of all our friends, supporters
and partner agencies. Without their generosity we could not provide a
service. It is no exaggeration to say that their kindness really does
change lives.
Thank you and we look forward to another productive year.
Judith Ford
Volunteer Co-ordinator
Volunteers are a crucial part of Night stop and we could not provide a
service without them. Our volunteers undertake a number of roles
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Voluntary management Committee – 9 volunteers who support
and guide the work of Nightstop
Volunteer Hosts – provide emergency accommodation for our
young people in their home. Special thanks go to our hosts who
we could not do without, who have been working quietly behind
the scenes, making a difference to the lives of each person they
help
Young volunteers who through our volunteer for Success
programme undertake a range of activities with us.
Volunteers from within the community who regularly support us
with donations of money, food, toiletries, clothes and other items
which make such a difference to our young people when they are
in crisis.
Our young people have been exceptional this year in their willingness to
help with all our activities. We have had some excellent young bakers in
the Youth Centre kitchen making cakes for the Macmillan Coffee Morning
and our Christmas Coffee Morning. They have also helped on the day
which has been excellent experience for them and really developed their
social skills as they have mixed with a range of people from our local MP
and Councillors, partner agencies and other volunteers and members of
the local community.
Many of our volunteers are young people who have used the Nightstop
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service and are now in more settled long term accommodation. Working
in a team helps them to build confidence, self-esteem and communication
skills, all vital when looking for work. A few of them have gone on to do
The Princes Trust programme, further developing their skills and
confidence, and some have found work locally. One of our young people
who volunteered at our coffee morning met our MP Mark Garnier, who
offered her a week’s work experience in his office which will be a fantastic
opportunity.
Together with the young volunteers we have helped at the Food Bank
when they have a supermarket collection. Over one morning we had 5
volunteers coming in and dating tins or moving stock, under the
supervision of the Foodbank staff. This has promoted a very positive
impression of our young volunteers within the community. Some of our
volunteers have used the Food Bank previously and enjoyed being able to
help. It was good to see different generations of volunteers working side
by side for the benefit of their community.
Thanks also goes to The Valentines Choir and Aylmer Lodge Surgery who
tirelessly collect food, toiletries and money for our charity on a weekly
basis, so that we can redistribute them to people in crisis.
Despite the difficulties some of these young people have experienced,
when they are given a task to do they have proved themselves to be
polite, willing and hard working. Everyone they have volunteered for has
had something positive to say about them which has made it a pleasure
to be working with them. We look forward to 2014 and meeting more
young people to share our volunteering experiences with.
Julia Greaves Volunteer Coordinator
Two of our bakers
Wyre Forest Nightstop and Mediation Scheme
Charlotte designed our banner
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Mediation
As previously mentioned we aim to continue to develop and expand the
mediation service over the next year. We plan to advertise the service to
all relevant agencies across the county and will work with schools to make
them aware of the potential benefits of mediation to families who are
experiencing conflict.
We will be looking to train another volunteer mediator to support this
work.
We consider mediation to be an extremely useful tool in helping to
prevent youth homelessness with the added advantage of helping to
support a secure and safe family relationship which is vital for the young
person as s/he moves into independence.
Funding
We have received funds from the following:
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The Big Lottery Reaching Communities
Wyre Forest District Council
Mid-Counties Coop
Comic Relief
100 Club
RD Turner Trust
Councillor Marcus Hart
Councillor John Campion
Councillor Anne Hingley
Councillor Rose Bishop
Councillor Paul Harrison
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Donations
The generosity of our friends in the Wyre Forest allows us to react quickly
in an emergency situation. We can provide food, toiletries, clothing and
other essential items. We have provided bus and train fares to
college/hostels/home and helped when young people move into their own
accommodation and need bedding, crockery and other house hold items.
We would like to thank all our donors and in particular
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Franche Church for regular food hampers
Valentines Choir who bring us weekly donations of food and
toiletries personally donated by their members
Aylmer Lodge for their generosity and kindness over the last 2
years
Kidderminster Soroptomists
Kidderminster and District Youth Trust for giving us office space
and supporting us so generously during the last year
Monday Night Group
Case Studies
H
H was born in the Wyre Forest area but later his family moved to a small
remote town near Aberdeen in Scotland. He had been working since leaving
school but lost his job and his Mum, now single, said she couldn’t afford to keep
him if he had no work. He spent some time sleeping rough in Scotland before
returning to this area where he still had friends, hoping to find work and a place
to live.
After applying for housing, he was told he wasn’t eligible because he had no
local connection, so after staying with friends for a few nights he spent 6 nights
sleeping rough on the bins at the back of B & Q. When he came to us he really
needed our help.
We were able to offer him food immediately from our cupboard, and arranged a
Nightstop host for him so that he could be clean and comfortable for the first
time in days. He had very few possessions so we were able to get him essential
items of clothing and a phone so that we could keep in touch with him. The host
said what a lovely young man he was.
Being unable to see a way forward, we offered H a Megabus ticket back to
Aberdeen, with details of local hostels. He would have gone had we not spoken
to our colleague who runs Nightstop in Malvern, who knew about some rooms at
the Malvern Foyer which had been empty for some time that they would consider
for someone from out of area. We took H there the next day and he was offered
a bright and clean room in a place with lots of support, which he was more than
happy to accept.
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After spending just 3 nights with our host he moved in with a box of donated
food to start him off in his new life in Malvern. He can stay there for up to 2
years, with lots of help to move onto his own tenancy when he is ready.
He said:
I was sleeping rough for a few weeks when I was told about Nightstop. I went and spoke to
them about my situation. They were very understanding and kind. Nightstop found me a
place to stay. I stayed with a very nice woman who was warm and friendly and made me
feel at home and fed me proper meals. Within a week Nightstop had turned my life around
from sleeping rough to finding my own place. I am very grateful and so happy with
Nightstop.
Case Study S and R
A referral from the local MP’s office was our first contact with S and R. They
were both aged 17 and had spent some time sofa surfing and staying with
relations and friends. Parents had moved out of the area and were living in
accommodation too small to accommodate S and R so this caused a lot of
friction.
On returning to Kidderminster they found their age and lack of income made it
impossible for them to find anywhere to live which is why they resorted to sofa
surfing and accepting food from friends.
They were very anxious about being separated from each other and fearful of
being placed somewhere on their own .
We met with S and R and began the lengthy process of linking them into the
‘system’. A call to the Access Centre (Social Services) said we should make a
referral and this we did. We referred them to Engage (formely Connexions) and
they helped them to make a claim for Benefit payments and look at options for
employment and college. They registered with housing but this was put on hold
whilst their application to Children’s Services was processed (re the
Worcestershire Protocol) A chance conversation with a member of the Stonham
Supported Housing team informed us about a property in Kidderminster,
however their age raised concerns as they were under 18.
Children’s Services interviewed S and R and explained how the system worked
and what their choices might be. After a week they gave them financial
assistance pending their benefit claim. We meanwhile made referrals to St Basils
and Stonham for supported accommodation.
Whilst we were working on finding them somewhere to live S and R worked with
us as Nightstop Volunteers gaining experience and boosting their confidence.
For some weeks we liaised closely with Stonham, Children’s Services and
Housing. Stonham came and did an assessment with S and R and thought they
would be suitable for their shared house but only on a very short term licence
as impending cuts to the local Supporting People budget mean they do not know
how long they can sustain this supported housing project.
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They were offered a place and all set to move in when the property failed the
gas inspection. A few days staying on Nightstop gave them some respite from
cramped sofas and afforded them a hot meal, shower and the chance to wash
their clothes. Finally the property was ready and with the help of Stonham and
Nightstop they began to move in.
S and R have now been living in their first home together for 3 months. They
are coping well and hope to find work/college places very soon. They continue to
volunteer with Nightstop. There have been issues with finance and they are
currently battling to claim benefits.
For about a month we were both sleeping on a friends sofa, the situation was horrible, it
was very difficult after a while and nobody really wanted to help us because of our age.
I emailed the MP Mark Garnier because I got annoyed with everything and he was
extremely shocked that this is what it had come to, that no one would help us. We got an
email back from his secretary saying to go to Nightstop and to keep in contact so that he
knows what's going on. (He was good). We sat down and told Nightstop our story, they
were amazing, they listened, they were the first to listen.
Now 2 weeks after we have our life back on track, we have something to look forward to
and we have a place to call our own. Finally!
Statistics
Over the last year we have worked with over 100 young people and seen
many of them on a number of occasions. Wyre Forest has the highest
number of homeless under 18 year olds in the County and this is reflected
in our referrals. The majority of homeless cases can be attributed to a
family or relationship breakdown and this has very much been the case
with the young people we have worked with last year. We are very keen
to further develop our mediation service over the next year to try and
repair some of these relationships and help to prevent potential
homelessness.
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Referrals by age
Age of young person
referred
Number of young persons
referred at each age
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Total =
13
36
27
6
4
9
6
4
0
3
108
Sources of referrals
Referring Agency
SGS/ Engage
The Lion Hotel
After Care Team
St Basils
KDYT
Princes Trust
MP Mark Garnier’s office
Children’s Services
Self-referral
WFCH
Food Bank
Street Pastors
Kidderminster College
CAB
Total =
Number of Referrals From
Agency
20
3
4
28
4
1
2
10
28
2
2
1
2
1
108
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Causes of Homelessness
Reason for Homelessness
Family/relationship breakdown
Leaving Care
Evicted
Other
% of Young Persons
Homeless for Each Reason
76%`
11%
9%
4%
Young People Accommodated by Nightstop
Number of MALE Young Persons Referred to, and Accommodated by,
Nightstop
Age
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Total =
Number of Male
Referrals
6
14
22
4
0
1
8
0
2
1
58
Number of Male Referrals
Accommodated by Nightstop
1
4
4
1
0
1
2
0
1
1
15
Wyre Forest Nightstop and Mediation Scheme
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Number of FEMALE Young Persons Referred to, and Accommodated by,
Nightstop
Age
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Total =
Number of Female
Referrals
6
18
6
9
0
3
8
0
0
0
50
Number of Female Referrals
Accommodated by Nightstop
1
6
1
2
0
0
0
0
0
0
10
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Financial Report
The trustees have changed the financial year end from November 12 th to
the 31st March to coincide with the financial year end of Government and
other funding agencies. This will streamline our reporting procedures in
future years. Consequently, we will prepare financial statements for the
period November 2012 to March 2014 and annually thereafter and as a
result we have not prepared interim financial accounts for this AGM.
We continually monitor our financial position to ensure that we maintain
adequate funds and comply with the requirements of our funders.
We thank all our generous donors for their continued support and will
report financially to The Charity Commission during the Summer.
Everyone deserves a home
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