You’d be hard pushed to find someone at this time of year, with the weather becoming harsh, the nights getting longer and the focus on festivities, who doesn’t spare a thought for those people they see living rough on the streets of their city. It is natural to see someone suffering and want to reach out a hand to help. Throughout November and December we are inundated with offers of time, from people who want to volunteer to support the homeless over the festive period. We are truly grateful for your support.
At Simon on the Streets, we always meet this time of year with a bit of a conundrum. At no other time of year do we have so many offers of support and so few opportunities in which to channel those offers of time. It all comes down to the unique way in which we work with our target group. Believe it or not, we are a really small organisation. We have 6 support workers currently and only 4 other members of staff that take care of the operational running of our charitable work, fundraising, marketing, administration, partnership building etc. All of our work is street outreach based and happens within the community, this means that we do not have premises that are accessible to the general public or our client base.
Most importantly, our priority as an outreach based charity is to offer emotional support to individuals with multiple complex needs, including rough sleeping. We prioritise the emotional support needs of our clients rather than immediate needs such as food, clothing and shelter as such needs are already met by many other fantastic organisations in Leeds, Bradford and Huddersfield. We work to build sustainable and long term relationships based on trust, and over time these relationships develop to have a practical side as we begin to advocate and support our clients to engage with services. This need for emotional and practical support is ongoing 365 days of the year. We are actually busier working to meet the needs of our clients in June than we are in December. As an independent charity we can prioritise emotional support above anything else and work without any kind of agenda. Having 16 years’ experience delivering this kind of outreach based support, we know its value and also its uniqueness.
The value of the relationships that our support workers build with their clients on a 1-2-1 basis is such that we strive to protect them. Our team are trained to deliver psycho social interventions and really help the individuals they support get to the root causes of their often harmful and chaotic lives. Where it is absolutely appropriate for an organisation that caters for the material needs of our clients (for food and clothing example) to take on extra hands at this most busy time of year, for us, with the deeply personal and private nature of our interactions with our clients, this would not be the case. We know that our clients appreciate the time and support they receive from members of the public at this time of year especially and we strongly wish to support those people who would like to volunteer in this way. Please see some links to such services in Leeds, Bradford and Huddersfield at the foot of this post. That’s not to say we don’t need volunteers! We have all kinds of activity for volunteers all years round (advocacy, events, administration etc) including some outreach posts (although these are rare as we purposefully take volunteers who can make a long term commitment all year round, they often stay with us for many years). If you would like to know more about these opportunities please do get in touch.
The sad news is for us is that we are not meeting need. Our case loads are full and in every city we work in we have identified a list of individuals who are going un-supported because we simply don’t have the resources to work with them intensively. We would love to be larger, we need more support workers on the ground to meet the growing need, but we don’t have financial capacity for that currently. A huge way that you can support Simon on the Streets is to fundraise for us. And you can do this in any number of different ways. Below are just a few examples of how you can fundraise for us in the lead up to Christmas. Please feel welcome to get in touch with us for a fundraising pack or with any questions you might have on admin@simononthestreets.co.uk
A sincere thank you to all of our supporters from the team at Simon on the Streets.
FESTIVE FUNDRAISERS!
– Michelle from Leeds has put together a hamper of goodies that she is raffling at her work
– Paul from Bradford is doing a dress down day at work and collecting for us
– Tim from Leeds is doing a team challenge day with his whole team and putting together a festive obstacle race for members of the public to enjoy/ endure…! We will post details of this as they emerge in the next few weeks.
– Debbie from Huddersfield is doing her Christmas shopping online and donating to Simon on the Streets through EASYFUNDRAISING
– A local Leeds primary school are doing an end of term festive bake sale
– Some local shops and bars are taking collection tins for us. If you would like to take a collection tin please do get in touch.
– A church group in Huddersfield are a Christmas collection for us and committed to monthly collections going forwards after a support worker visited the group and shared more about her work.
Local services that might take volunteers over Christmas.
LEEDS: This is a good link that has info on most services in Leeds
http://www.leedsfoodaidnetwork.co.uk/food-drop-ins/
HUDDERSFIELD: http://thewelcomecentre.org/
BRADFORD: http://theimmanuelproject.org.uk/