Research, advice and support

OSW

Supporting individuals at multiple disadvantage

“When you are homeless you are invisible and not heard. The project puts you at centre stage and you’re out there getting involved in making decisions.” These are the words of a participant in Tackling Multiple Disadvantage in London (TMD London), a three year programme of service delivery, research and policy development initiated by Off the Streets and into Work (OSW).

TMD London was set up in 2004 as a response to overwhelming evidence of the interrelationship between homelessness, multiple disadvantage and low levels of activity or labour market participation. It was decided that the programme would be made up of a range of pilot projects, each testing new methods of supporting individuals with multiple disadvantage to improve their employability.

Successful research elements of the programme included the first ever participation audit of homelessness services across Europe. Practical resources were produced in the shape of a good practice website for the homelessness sector and a guide to work placements highlighting best practice, while a range of conferences and seminars were held across the country in order to share knowledge. At a service user level, TMD London worked with over 800 individuals, of whom 120 entered further education or training, 150 moved into employment; and 187 took up a volunteering opportunity. 

The judges said OSW gave a very good explanation of “its targets and outcomes rather than outputs” and that it was a “compelling and well-managed project”. Nevertheless, Michael Fothergill, policy and communications manager at OSW, says there is still more work to be done. “Homeless people have fantastic abilities and can really add to social and economic opportunities if supported in the right way. Government programmes should reflect that.”

Michael Fothergill
Policy and communications manager
4th Floor
The Pavilion
1 Newham’s Row
London
SE1 3UZ
www.osw.org.uk
Reg no. 172914

Charities Evaluation Services

Raising quality standards

CES was the first charity to offer national support to charities wishing to improve their quality, and did so initially via systems such as the ISO standard, which had been imported from other sectors. However, the message from its users was that for many small organisations what was needed was something much more practical, straightforward, low cost and tailored to their needs. In particular, users complained of jargon, with useful concepts not being expressed appropriately, while other concepts were not appropriate at all.

Around the same time, in 1996, the Deakin Commission on the future of the voluntary sector highlighted the need for the sector to raise its game on assuring quality or risk an uncertain future. CES published the first edition of PQASSO quality system one year later following substantial consultation and piloting. This was followed by the creation of free briefing sessions and, later, a two day training course on implementing PQASSO. In 2001 CES began building a network of licensed PQASSO mentors, mainly within CVSs, to widen its support network. Last year, an externally assessed kitemark was launched after four years of planning and piloting.

PQASSO has become the most widely used quality system in the UK third sector, with 13,000 copies sold. It is now also increasingly being adopted, translated, and adapted in emerging civil societies such as Hungary, Croatia, Japan, India and Bangladesh. “PQASSO is a good example of an innovation that has really taken off,” according to chief executive Colin Nee. “Arguably, more than any other single initiative, PQASSO has made the somewhat daunting discipline of quality assurance accessible throughout the third sector.”

The judges said that PQASSO was a model that had “developed over a period of time to become exceptional”, and that “recognition for PQASSO is well overdue”, because it had made “a very serious impact in terms of raising standards across the sector”.

Colin Nee
Chief executive
4 Coldbath Square
London
EC1R 5HL
020 7713 5722
www.ces-vol.org.uk
Reg no. 803602

Thames Reach

“It was impossible to get a job when I was homeless and unemployed. GROW was a ‘kick-start’ for me and a new phase in my life. I demonstrated my ability, completed the training, and getting a permanent job restored my self-dignity and confidence.” These are the words of one participant of the Grow (Giving Real Opportunities for Work) Project, designed to encourage the employment of homeless people within homelessness organisations.

The project was inspired by a visit to a homelessness charity in New York, where employment of service users is common, providing role models for their peers and producing a healthy, service user-centred organisational culture. Thames Reach contrasted this to the UK and identified that professionalisation of the homelessness sector over the previous 15-20 years had led to an ‘us and them’ culture.

Grow was initiated in July 2005 and consisted of three strands of work. Firstly, Thames Reach looked at itself, taking action to remove of organisational barriers to employing homeless people, and developing more positive attitudes among staff. Secondly, it developed routes for homeless people into employment, such as via traineeships, volunteering and intermediate labour market schemes. Finally, the charity undertook the dissemination of best practice to encourage and persuade other organisations to follow suit.

“In some respects we expected it to be difficult”, says John Crowther, director of operations, “but the most influential thing was first intake of employees, they dispelled a lot of the concerns of existing employees as they were so enthusiastic.” Indeed such was the culture change within Thames Reach that 41 per cent of staff said they were more positive about user employment since the project began. Furthermore, the charity exceeded its target of employing 10 per cent of staff with a history of service use, and now intends to increase that figure by April 2009.

Thames Reach is now spreading its good practice via the website www.useremployment.org, inter-agency meetings and round table discussions. Its success in this respect can been seen in the fact that where previously only a handful of organisations across the country were employing service users, now a total of 66 do so.

John Crowther
Director of operations
Thames Reach Housing Association
Gem House
122- 126 Backchurch Lane
London
E1 1ND
020 7702 5638
Reg. No. 24377R
www.thamesreach.org.uk

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