Our hostels are not just bricks and mortar. Alongside having a safe, secure and stable living environment, our staff and volunteers help our clients to work through their issues and to gain the confidence needed to be able to manage and sustain their tenancies in the wider community. This might be through supporting them to find a detox place, semi-independent accommodation or a private rented home.
We provide four meals a day. The menu is varied, healthy and is seasonally adjusted.
Missing any meal of the day can mean missing out on the recommended daily amounts of essential vitamins and minerals. This can result in poor physical and mental abilities, so we try to promote healthy and balanced diets for all our residents.
Our team of chef/housekeepers try wherever possible to help those residents with strict dietary needs, such as vegetarians, lactose or starch intolerant etc…
Not only do our team of dedicated chef/housekeepers prepare meals and carry out full housekeeping duties, they also provide domestic skills training for our residents to undertake to help towards preparing them for semi or full independent living.
Our residents will learn how to prepare inexpensive, simple but nutritious dishes and be advised on dietary needs. This training will also include advice on how to store and cook frozen foods safely and how to safely re-heat and store chilled and cooked foods. It also involves personal cleanliness in the kitchen and how to avoid food poisoning and cross contamination.
In addition to the cooking skills, our Chef/Housekeepers raise awareness of general hygiene around the home (such as cleaning a cooker, fridge and microwave and keeping bins and the surrounding areas clean and disinfected), including the understanding and uses of cleaning products and their storage
We offer support to clients with varying levels of need and issues, such as substance misuse, learning difficulties, mental health problems and offending behaviour. Some clients have minimal needs but just having safe and secure accommodation allows them the time and breathing space to get back on their feet.
The Support Team liaise with specialist agencies such as mental health services, drug and alcohol agencies, debt management schemes, mentoring projects, probation services and so on. The team also have good links with and invites on-site work from numerous educational establishments and also offers social life skills courses and other projects for our residents to access.
At our supported accommodation flats we offer tenancy sustainment support where our Dispersed Housing Officers visit our clients in their own homes, providing a floating support service. This lighter touch approach helps our clients to adjust to living semi-independently until they are ready to move on into full independence, whether it is in a Housing Association or local authority property or a flat of their own in the private rented sector, where we have numerous good links to lettings agencies and private landlords.
