We spoke to Beatrice, who has been volunteering with Croydon Reach as part of her degree in social work. As her placement comes to an end, we asked her about her experience and what she has learned on her journey towards becoming a trained social worker.

Can you tell us about the work you have done on your placement?

I have been in the outreach team as an outreach support worker at Croydon Reach. It’s been a really valuable learning experience for me, as at the beginning I was learning how the team support clients, and by the beginning of this year I had my own case load. I have been supporting people with housing, helping access benefits and signposting to services. Most of the people I’ve worked with have successfully moved on, so I’m proud of the work I’ve done.

Can you tell us a bit about your working background prior to coming to Thames Reach?

I am in my second year of my social work degree and didn’t have a lot of experience before coming here. I did do some volunteering in Portugal at an organisation working with refugees, people experiencing homelessness and people in supported housing. I was teaching computer skills, but there was a much smaller client group there.

What did you learn about homelessness during your time with us?

There is this public perception about homelessness that is so limiting, but it’s not the case with people you meet as a support worker. The negative stereotypes are so unhelpful and don’t account for the journeys that people are on.

When I got the placement, I didn’t think so much about homelessness in relation studying social work, but it’s made me realise that there are all sorts of people and situations involved in homelessness, and lots of different needs. In my social work experience before Thames Reach, I had worked with one group of people with one particular set of needs, but with homelessness there are so many factors to consider.

What would you say to someone thinking of volunteering with Thames Reach?

With all these different factors in people’s lives, it means there is a wide spectrum of opportunities, especially if you want to learn about particular things or use particular skills. The team have been so great to work with, I felt really supported and included. They were really open to being asked questions too, which is great when you’re first starting out.

How do you think your placement experience will help you be a better social worker?

I’ve learned so much about empowering the people we work with, and the ethics around that. It’s so important to understand what the individual wants, not just projecting what I think is best, as their support worker. I hope to be able to support people from where they are, rather than where I, or anyone else, think they should be. Understanding people and communicating with them has been such a huge learning opportunity for me; people engaging with substance teams, for example, has allowed me to see the process for myself. The journey someone is on isn’t always a straight line, and seeing people start again, if that’s what they need to do, is all part of that.

If you, or your team, are interested in volunteering with Thames Reach, please have a look at our Volunteer page and contact VolunteerManagers@thamesreach.org.uk for more information.

Thames Reach’s mission is to help homeless, vulnerable people to find decent homes, build supportive relationships and lead fulfilling lives.  The work of our Prevention teams are a key part of our strategy to encourage client independence through the support of rough sleepers, or individuals in temporary accommodation. Area Manager for Prevention, Zandi Zungu, talks us through Thames Reach’s prevention offer, consisting of a wide range of different services which centre around providing skills, employment or accommodation with the aim of preventing homelessness.

Our Peer Landlord scheme will undergo an expansion in Hackney as we will be providing supportive accommodation to individuals who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.  Peer Landlord will be offering accommodation to people who are working, and in a new aspect of the scheme, we will offer rooms to individuals whom have no recourse to public funds.

Within our Greenwich Private Rented Sector (“PRS”) scheme, we have successfully housed 64 individuals in private accommodation over the last year across several London boroughs.  The scheme has a tenancy sustainment rate of 82%.

The Sustaining Tenancies Accommodation & Resettlement Team (“STAR”), works in partnership with Shelter, St. Mungo’s and Stonewall Housing to prevent homelessness across London by supporting people with complex needs to get and keep a home, find employment, build their skills and improve their mental health.  Recently, the STAR team has responded to concentrations of rough sleepers previously inaccessible due to lockdown.  As a result of this work, there has been an increase in the number of service users assisted by the team.

Within the Central European Homeless Assistance Service, (“CEHAS”), we work with rough sleepers within the six North London boroughs to access employment and training including those who might have additional support needs.  A key part of this is helping people regularise their status, particularly where they have a history of working in the UK.  Presently, we have helped 17 clients achieve full settled status, and obtain Universal Credit, thus leading them closer to employment.

Located in Lewisham, Deptford Reach is our day centre within our Prevention offer.  At Deptford Reach, we provide case management, health services, mental health support, and social engagement activities to people who are vulnerably housed.

The Employment & Skills team at Thames Reach provides basic skills, digital skills, work readiness support, job opportunities, and in work-support to individuals who have a history of rough sleeping, or are currently living in hostels.  Throughout the lockdown, the Employment & Skills team has redefined their delivery model to engage with the most socially isolated and vulnerable service users.

George Slater, support worker at Croydon Reach, tells us all about his service, and his role in helping people rough sleeping across the borough to escape homelessness and then supporting them into new accommodation. George discusses his progression from Thames Reach’s Traineeship programme to a support worker, how the Croydon Reach team have come together to produce fantastic results, and how they feel prepared for future challenges.

I started at Croydon Reach in May last year as a Trainee and have since been given the opportunity to work my way up as an assistant support worker and then support worker.

Croydon Reach is responsible for handling the casework of verified rough sleepers in the local borough; we support our clients from the point of verification and then into temporary accommodation through their local council and back to more long-term independent living. Since becoming a support worker I have taken on the responsibility of overseeing the outreach side of our work and monitoring our rough sleeping population.

It’s been a very interesting year for Croydon Reach. We normally coordinate the Floating Churches Shelter during the winter months but this had to be cut short once lockdown measures were introduced, but all clients were found alternative accommodation that same afternoon! We also suddenly lost access to our daily drop-ins hosted by partner agencies such as Crisis, Salvation Army & Turning Point, as well as the ability to immediately place new rough sleepers into the No Second Night Out and Somewhere Safe To Stay Hubs.

The nature of our workload dramatically changed when the Government introduced the “Everyone In” policy at the end of March. Overnight, we suddenly had all of our rough-sleeping client base in local authority and Greater London Authority (GLA) hotel accommodation, giving us the opportunity to find sustainable, more permanent accommodation options for everyone. On the outreach side of things, we experienced a huge increase in the number of new rough sleeper referrals from Streetlink, and consequently we had a much higher volume of newly verified clients to work with. Thanks to the availability of GLA hotels we were able to accommodate everyone.

Despite the tragic consequences of COVID-19, Croydon Reach have had really positive outcomes in being able to get 90% of our clients immediately into temporary accommodation and placing 80 clients into permanent accommodation, including many of our most entrenched rough sleepers with a history of non-engagement. Although we’ve had to limit the usual face-to-face work that we do, the team has been able to work in the office safely and we’ve had the chance to streamline our workload and become much more efficient. The amount of increased casework we’ve experienced since March has been a positive learning curve for us all and we feel well prepared for the challenges we may face in the near future.