Engaging people who are homeless or temporarily housed in activities that will develop their skills and employability is a major aspect of working to achieve positive change. This section will discuss some of the benefits and barriers to participation and suggest some activities that serve to develop confidence, skills and a positive experience of work and learning.
The crossover between meaningful activity or occupation and activities for engagement is vast, as the two are pretty interchangeable. Any activity that engages someone is meaningful and similarly meaningful activity is the first step on the ladder towards self development and progression, and hence an engagement activity.
This section refers to ‘activities for engagement’ which could otherwise be called meaningful occupation or activity, but are included here as they can be the springboard for engaging in courses, identifying areas of interest, building the self confidence necessary to take the next step, and also stabilising and reducing harmful behaviours such as drinking.
Later sections in this handbook, such as volunteering and employment within homelessness services build on the principles of participation and service user involvement. More information and guidance on meaningful participation is available in the relevant hostel and day centre sections.
See also the sections on meaningful occupation in hostels and day centres.
Sport is great for uniting people, for people’s physical and mental health, motivation and self-esteem. Team sports can help people’s confidence, assertiveness, communication skills, and social life!
Many organisations make use of sports, from relatively sedate sports such as walking or indoor sports like darts, pool, bowling, to provide activities and outings for clients.
The Sports Universities North East England (SUNEE) coalition brings together five top sporting universities in north east England to work together to improve their local communities, and contribute to regional development.
SUNEE have recently developed a major programme of student sports coaching for young people and homeless people in the region, with funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England . The scheme will work with 15 hoemlessness organisations in north east England, providing sports sessions coached by student volutneers, who are working towards a qualification in coaching.
The scheme hopes to capitalise on the interest generated around the 2012 Olympics, to encourage people to take physical exercise, and to consider volutneering at the Games. The scheme is widely advertised in local agencies. For more information contact Homeless Link’s north east regional manager
Anchor House is a large hostel in East London, with 140 residents. These ideas for activities came from an interview with Aggrie Chikiwa, Teacher at Anchor House, who recently won the Michael Whippman Award for service user contributions to the community.
A Lea Valley regeneration project day
Aggrie organised for residents of Anchor House to participate on a organised walk in the Lea Valley regeneration area, learning about the educational and historical sites, the conservation areas, plans for the future regeneration of the area. Everyone learnt a lot about the area – for example the Greenwich Mean Time line passes through this area. It was an awareness-raising day and people completed questionnaires and gave feedback. People are more likely to be involved in a community they have some pride and interest in.
Anchor House residents regularly participate in football tournaments, such as Street League. The company Morgan Stanley also fields a football team for tournaments, and alongside this talk to residents about employment and their work.
Other outdoor activities can be effective in engaging people, and for many, are a welcome respite from their usual surroundings.
The Booth Centre in Manchester makes very innovative use of outdoor activities, and have succeeded in getting an accredited open college network course on Conservation Awareness to complement their rambles! See here a page about Conservation volunteering, that contributed to the Booth Centre winning an award from Manchester Council for their contribution to the environment.
The centre have worked closely with Greater Manchester Open College Network, for more information on this see the section on training courses. See a case study: OCN courses at the Booth Centre in the section on training courses.
Gardening and landscaping projects can prove very popular too, the Booth Centre has several allotments, and any gardener will tell you how therapeutic it is to get a bit grubby and have something growing to show for it! Some of these projects go on to great things, such as the Booth Centre’s Phoenix Landscapes social enterprise, or Thames Reach’s Cabbages & Kings social enterprise.
Encouraging people to express themselves artistically can also be a contributor to engaging them in other activities or projects. Many people have artistic skills or interests and setting up groups or classes should be low cost and could involve service users or residents as teachers.
The Key 2 project in Portadown use art in working with clients, who have produced cartoon and photography projects that are featured on Youtube. See the Key 2 case study and links. Developing art projects into film involves new skills and some maths – in timings and transitions of the film and is in this way an excellent activity for engaging people and improving basic skills.
Of course, many people who are homeless or formely homeless are very keen to work and to get back into it as soon as possible. For this reason, it can be beneficial to both agencies to host work related advice sessions or job search facilities in house.
Anchor House for example, a large hostel in East London, hosts JobCentre + surgeries inhouse. This example of partnership working between statutory and voluntary agencies brings great benefit to the residents. The JobCentre+ sends a homelessness officer to hold surgeries at Anchor House every week. The surgeries cover job advice, CV advice and job searching.
If the need in your service falls short of a dedicated Job Centre Plus surgery, staff can support residents or service users in looking for work - see the section on Employment Links for some ideas.