What is Included?

• The number of offenders who complete the skills for life programme and achieve a vocational qualification
• Number of adults over 16 with a history of homelessness, or offending or substance misuse who complete work trials which result in sustainable work (of at least 16 hours per week for a minimum of 13 weeks
• Number of adults over 16 with a history of homelessness, or offending or substance misuse resettled into a supported housing option, either supported accommodation or independent accommodation with floating support, or supported into settled accommodation (with a minimum of 6 month tenancy).

Important Actions

Shekinah Mission’s Steady Work project in Plymouth works to train people who are homeless or ex-offenders on nationally accredited construction courses. Torbay Council visited to see if this could be duplicated in Torbay. They saw how Shekinah Mission could demonstrate an evidence base of savings to the criminal justice system, drug treatment centres and homeless hostels and so realised they could fit a similar project and the above targets under the economic block of the LAA.

Because the project involved ex-offenders, they arranged meetings and made sure they had local police and probation on board. They also invited representatives of the Government Office of the South West and Councillors to visit the project, to raise their awareness of this issue and the need for its inclusion in the LAA. The target opened up the possibility of other funding streams for this project and potential sustainability.

Lessons Learnt

• The Third Sector are in a powerful position because of the evidence base they can provide, but there is a challenge for the sector in relation to how this can be measured and reported.
• The Government Office, Council and statutory bodies needed to recognise how homelessness projects could link in to economic, health and safer community targets and the voluntary sector began to carefully think about how they could evidence outcomes.

For more information on this project, please contact:

Simon Sherbersky from Torbay Council- Simon.Sherbersky@torbay.gov.uk

John Hamblin from Shekinah Mission- john.hamblin@shekinahmission.co.uk