Can you tell us about the projects you manage?
Clarence Avenue is an eight-bed project, all self-contained studio flats with en-suite bathrooms and kitchens. We are one of the hostels under Lambeth council’s Vulnerable Adults Pathway to help people come off the streets. We work with residents to help them get to where they need to be. When they first arrive, they will be assessed to see how independent they are and what they might need help with.

At Clarence Avenue, staff provide support for a wide range of issues that residents may arrive with, as well as helping with daily tasks such as budgeting and shopping. Once they are ready, residents will be referred to Clearing House, which is a form of social housing on a two year tenancy, and will be assigned a support worker from the TST (Tenancy Sustainment Team), making sure their support needs are covered. In Clarence Avenue there is always a member of staff available at reception to answer any urgent queries and monitor people entering and exiting the building. The clients there make appointments to see their support worker, which helps to prepare them for more independent living and engaging with services in the community.

I also manage Acre Lane, which is Thames Reach’s newest hostel. Between January and March, it was acting as a cold weather shelter. If outreach workers found someone sleeping rough in Lambeth they could bring them here to be accommodated while we found out more about them . The building is currently being refitted and redecorated;. Part of that refit is having one studio downstairs which is more isolated, which is reserved for a vulnerable person who may benefit from living closer to staff areas.

How does the Lambeth Vulnerable Adults Pathway work?
Lambeth council work hard to ensure all people rough sleeping are made an offer of accommodation. Several Thames Reach hostels are commissioned by Lambeth, so Robertson Street, The Waterloo Project, Lambeth High Street, Martha Jones House, and now Acre Lane and Clarence Avenue. The council commission projects such as ours within their Vulnerable Adults Pathway, including supported housing, and people can move between them as required, with the end goal of moving out of supported accommodation and maintaining their own tenancy. Street homelessness is often complex and not straightforward to resolve, so we work with people to address their support needs.

What positive outcomes have you seen so far?
Trying to test people’s abilities to live independently has its challenges but residents having more freedom at Acre Lane has been working well. We run cooking classes once a week on each floor; some of our residents have not had to cook for themselves in a long time, so building up these skills is going to make a huge difference. While we provide support based on their needs, we also need to make sure we’re covering the everyday tasks and skills that residents will need to have in place in order to live well independently, so for example we can go to the shops with them if they need it, as well as signposting to external services, to help them engage more with the wider communities.

When Acre Lane was the cold weather shelter, we housed a lot of people in a very short space of time, which was really impressive.. Once people were housed, we were able to focus  on longer-term solutions, and again this was focused on the support needs of the individual. The team of staff have done really well, and worked so hard to help people move on in difficult circumstances. The project was set up very quickly over the winter months and everyone has had to be very adaptable and flexible, it’s been a strong team effort.

20 May is Global Accessibility Awareness Day, which looks to increase awareness around issues of digital access and inclusion. At a time where we are particularly reliant on technology to keep us connected, it is a concern that ‘digital poverty’ is affecting people who do not have access to either a device, a computer or data. The support required must come from a place of understanding and patience, and Annabelle Ferary, who runs Thames Reach’s iReach project, helping people develop digital skills, is an expert at providing this.

“I’m Annabelle, a digital support worker within the Employment and Skills team.  I first started at Thames Reach in 2016 as volunteer; I was impressed with the wrap-around service that the Employment and Skills team were delivering, and this inspired me to take on a paid role to help people develop and utilise their IT and digital skills in Southwark.

“This also led me to take on a further role delivering IT skills within the iReach digital project, which has been funded by the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists for several years. I delivered this within community and housing settings, supporting clients across Thames Reach.

“iReach consists of on-going weekly classes for those who would like to improve their confidence with accessing the internet and other online services independently. For example, many of the people I work with face challenges of setting up and accessing email accounts, accessing their Universal Credit independently or completing job searches.  The importance of IT skills has grown significantly since I started running iReach; it is becoming increasingly important to gain digital skills within a supportive environment.

“Since the pandemic I had to adapt how I delivered iReach. For example, many did not have access to a device, laptop, tablet or smart phone and broadband due to limited income.  This meant delivering the sessions remotely, leading to clients feeling isolated and frustrated. Several attendees shared that they wanted to have classes face-to-face due to anxiety levels and lack of confidence using devices. Digital poverty is a serious issue in society today, even more now than five years ago when I started, especially for the cohort of people we work with.

“Many of the clients I have supported have gained the confidence to complete a range of accredited courses; a great deal have been successful in obtaining employment. It is an exciting time for digital skills; the need for them will only keep growing, now that so many programmes have moved online.”

Thames Reach recently featured on Hubbub’s podcast ‘Down to Earth’, which discusses digital isolation through lack of tech access. Alessy Beaver in the Employment and Skills team discusses the ‘Community Calling’ project with her client, Paul. It’s a lovely podcast with a powerful message, available on Spotify here.

At Thames Reach, we welcome the new RSI (Rough Sleeping Initiative) funding provisions for rough sleeping services, with the government’s announcement last weekend that councils will receive a further £200million in this stage of their plan to support people experiencing rough sleeping. This is positive news that will help continue our efforts to reduce rough sleeping in London.  However while we welcome this investment we believe that there is an urgent need to review the national Rough Sleeping Strategy, learning from the lessons of the pandemic, both positive and negative.  Alongside this we would like to see a return to multi-year funding that can provide the sort of stability that will help us feel confident that we can offer lasting solutions to street homelessness, and help people along the journey of moving on from the streets, which only starts once an individual has been housed.

As part of this we would like to see an increased focus on the prevention stage of street homelessness, working with people to divert them away from the street and into more secure accommodation.  The last year has shown how precariously many people are housed, and highlighted the need to intervene earlier. We know that street homelessness is a huge cause of trauma and anxiety, and causes lasting damage, and it is crucial that we are able to work effectively to prevent this.

Any revised strategy will need to address the needs of people without recourse to public funds, particularly those with complex support needs.  Without this help for people who are currently largely ineligible, street homelessness will continue and numbers will increase.

The Mayoral and local government elections are taking place this week in London. Local government has a crucial role to play in our work towards ending street homelessness. During ‘Everyone In’ we saw incredible collaborations between organisations like Thames Reach and local authorities, to ensure people experiencing street homelessness were not left in danger on the streets during the lockdown. However, we are now finding that this short-term response to the pandemic, with people accommodated in hotels, is still in place a year on, highlighting how difficult it is to suitably house everyone who needs support. Here are the urgent points of action the next elected officials need to focus on, with efforts and funding spread across prevention, response and recovery.

The process of supporting people experiencing street homeless over the past year has been complicated. Some things have gone well and many people have had accommodation provided, even if only short term, as well as help to find their next steps, whether this is employment, housing or resolving their immigration status (or most likely a combination of these things).

A temporary relaxation of the ‘hostile environment’ allowed people with no recourse to public funds, and non-UK nationals, who are disproportionately represented on the streets, access to accommodation and support.  There is a danger that many of this group, who still remain in emergency accommodation, will return to the streets once this accommodation is closed.  Options for them will be few, and without political leadership from local and central government there is a likelihood that they will remain on the streets indefinitely. This will mean more detrimental damage to these people, who call London home, and more deaths on the streets.

Healthcare is a priority for everyone in London, perhaps now more than ever. We recognise that people experiencing homelessness find it more difficult to access the health services that they need, often making a greater use of these services only at a point of crisis.  This means that they are more likely to suffer from chronic illness and more likely to die early.  Everyone we work with at Thames Reach is encouraged and supported to register with their GP. However, health services need to improve their service of working with people who have, or are, experiencing street homelessness. We will continue to work with health services to break down the barriers that mean that people, often with multiple and complex needs, cannot access health services in their community.

In a similar vein, there remains a need for more higher-support accommodation. Many existing hostels need improvement or replacement, and it is important that there is investment of both revenue and capital in this area to ensure high-quality Covid-secure accommodation, in addition to sufficient staff capacity to work effectively to support people to move quickly into more permanent options. The last year has seen an increase in the accommodation available to people who have experienced street homelessness, and we welcome this.  However no two people are the same; their specific needs, and situations that have led to their sleeping rough, mean that it is important to have a range of accommodation and support that can help them make a permanent move away from street homelessness and towards independence.

Finally, it is important that we aren’t distracted by the (hopefully) exceptional events of the past year, in order to act on a genuine commitment to ending street homelessness.  As well as strengthening the response to street homelessness when it occurs, (particularly at the level of finding a quick resolution to street homelessness and the provision of emergency accommodation and support, with a focus on complex support needs) we do need to improve the work that we do to prevent street homelessness occurring in the first place. We know how to do this; one aspect of austerity has been the reduction and de-commissioning of locally funded tenancy sustainment and prevention services that were able to intervene before individuals became street homeless. They were effective in that they had many of the same characteristics as successful street outreach work: a willingness to seek out people who were at risk of losing their accommodation and a preparedness to assertively engage and build relationships with people who had poor previous experiences with services.  In many cases these people are already in contact with existing statutory services, but the support they receive is often piecemeal. Good tenancy support can coordinate these interventions and improve their effectiveness.

In listening to those who are on the front-line doing the work to prevent and eradicate street homelessness in London, new elected officials can further use this expertise to make London a safer and more caring city for people affected by, at risk of or currently experiencing street homelessness.

In the year 2020/21 almost half the people seen sleeping rough were assessed as having mental health support needs. This is a significant factor in helping people not only move on from street homelessness, but prevent episodes of sleeping rough in the first place. In response Thames Reach has teamed up with NHS mental health services, Lambeth council and other charitable organisations to improve the way these services work and to make sure that they are accessible to the people we work with.

Monica Geraghty, programme manager at the Lambeth Living Well Network Alliance, a service dedicated to mental health provisions in the borough, discusses its incredible work and how she looks after her own mental wellbeing.

“I have been working as part of the Lambeth Living Well Network Alliance (LWNA) for two years, and I am currently programme manager. The Alliance is a collaboration between five organisations: Certitude and Thames Reach (voluntary sector); NHS Lambeth Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) – now part of South-East London CCG; South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM), and Lambeth Council. This collaboration brings together agencies from statutory and voluntary sector organisations who work together to provide smoother access to services and support for those who need it.

“Adapting to the pandemic has been a challenge but one that teams have executed well. Inpatients wards have had to redesign how they operate to manage COVID-positive cases. The Alliance Rehabilitation Team and the 3 Living Well Centres (LWC) have had to pull their resources together and adjust to remote working practices. A lot of hard work has gone into developing these changes, which has included people working outside the normal expectations of their roles to ensure services have always remained covered. During the first lockdown I was part of the LWC duty system which I wouldn’t normally have done which gave me a good insight to the work and pressures these teams face.

“From these experiences we have found that as an Alliance we are resourceful and adaptable; teams have been focused on how we can support our Lambeth service users and have instigated change at pace to ensure this can happen. The other big change is that everyone now knows how to use Microsoft teams – there is no escaping it!”

Can you tell us a bit about your role, and your career before coming to Thames Reach?

My role as a job broker is to support clients through search, application and placement into employment. I am also building new and managing existing relationships with employers and training providers. Previous to working here I was a brand and general manager for an international fashion brand and a lecturer for Marketing and Communications in Business of Fashion. I started my career as a personal stylist and have worked with shopping giants such as Westfield and John Lewis developing and recruiting styling talent and delivering retail training programmes.

What are the biggest challenges in your role at the moment?

The biggest challenges in my role at the moment are very much influenced by the global pandemic and the effects on the economic market. Many businesses have shut their doors and certain industries have struggled to keep afloat. As a result there is an increase of people who are looking for work in an environment where there are not as many roles offered. However there is always an opportunity and I am very much motivated to ensure that people I work with are placed in sustainable employment.

What are the biggest challenges faced by those supported by the Employment and Skills (E&S) team, and how are you able to help?

The challenges faced by E&S clients are very complex and varied.  Main barriers include communication skills, lack of training, lack of experience, confidence, technology access and funds. By working with clients personally, I can tailor a plan to meet their needs in terms of receiving additional support in areas they are lacking and taking steps towards their employment goals. I support clients by coaching them through their job search and helping them navigate through resources that are available to them so they reach their full potential.

Do you have any predictions for the employment market once London comes out of a full lockdown? What advice are you giving to clients based on this?

I am very hopeful for the rise in the employment market once London comes out of full lockdown. My predictions in terms of job vacancies would be that the hospitality and hotel industries will making a big comeback, the beauty industry will boom, IT and digital technology will continue to dominate, and digital skills will be much in demand; warehouse, delivery service and construction will continue to thrive. I am also seeing a rise in local social enterprise businesses; giving back to the community will be more important than ever. Due to the mental health effects of the pandemic, mindfulness and wellbeing services will become more sought after than ever.

What are you hopeful about this year?

There will definitely be exciting opportunities this year to start fresh and with a new perspective. There are many grants to support and help rebuild the economy and the best thing we can all do is to continue to be positive and work together to make a difference to those that need it the most. This year is all about cross-referring, cross partnerships and establishing strong networks to provide an improved service and create opportunities from within.

The London Assembly Housing Committee has released its report on ‘Five Steps to Build on Everyone In in London’. It takes a thorough look at the current landscape of rough sleeping in London, and the legacy left behind by the ‘Everyone In’ initiative. Highlighting that rough sleeping in London has increased by 170% in the last decade, the committee has produced at set of recommendations for the Mayor of London and government alike in order to reduce the devastating impact of street homelessness on people’s lives.

The cross-party Housing Committee examines matters relating to housing in London and takes a lead on scrutiny of the Mayor’s Housing Strategy.

The report takes a close look at numbers of people spotted rough sleeping in each quarter of the year, and breaks down these statistics to understand more about the people behind the numbers: their demographics, their support needs, and what brought them to the streets. This report has a particular focus on the first three months of the year, when the economic and social impact of the first lockdown manifested in an unprecedented increase in the numbers of people seen sleeping on the streets.

The report also deals with the response to this, particularly the provision of temporary accommodation (the ‘Everyone In’ initiative), and the Greater London Authority (GLA) and charity response to this.

Audrey, a Thames Reach support worker at Deptford Reach who was seconded to one of the hotels we ran during ‘Everyone In’, is interviewed on page 18 of the report:

“While supporting clients in the hotel, I was able to see that clients engage more with support staff than they do while working at the day centre. A client that I had difficulty engaging with before COVID was identified by the London Street Rescue team as a rough sleeper. The client had no identification, no bank account, and no job. The client was in the hotel from April to September. I met him in the hotel, and he engaged with me rather quickly. After completing an assessment with him, and understanding his predicament, I was able to support him to obtain an ID, a bank account, and Universal Credit. Currently, the client is living in private rented sector accommodation.

Working with the client helped him to realise that he neglected himself and had not taken care of himself properly. He told me that he would “take care of myself now,” and this goes to show how much he has learned from his experience rough sleeping.”

At Thames Reach, we find it encouraging that the Plan Points stated at the end of the report are already very much engrained in Thames Reach’s mission of ending street homelessness, in particular the cross-sector collaboration and the tailored solutions for people with high support needs, which we outlined in our recent statement outlining our vision for 2021.

Thames Reach have seen that people have continued to come onto the streets since the first lockdown, and while ‘Everyone In’ has ensured that the first group of people experiencing homelessness were temporarily housed and provided with support from our teams such as Private Sector Lettings (PSL), the people we work with are not a static population, and that the need for effective prevention work is greater than ever.

2020 was a year of great challenges for Thames Reach and the wider world, but it was a time where it was most clear that our vision of ending street homelessness is an urgent social and health priority. Thames Reach’s community of staff, volunteers and supporters came together throughout the year to ensure that vulnerable people were not left behind, from the Everyone In initiative in the Spring, through to maintaining and adapting all our services to respond to the impact of the pandemic.

Our core mission remains as it always has: to help people who are homeless or vulnerable find decent homes, build supportive relationships and lead fulfilling lives. While we need to respond to a world that is changing fast, our priorities for how we work to end street homelessness are now even more urgent.

A tailored approach to housing and accommodation. While there is a shortage of housing in London that is available to the people we work with, we recognise that it is not enough just to build more. Housing is not a one-size-fits-all solution, and there is a need for a range of accommodation models that can meet specific needs for independence, security and affordability and which complements the support that people will need at different points in their lives.  We know that this is not something that we can do on our own, and that we will need to continue working in partnership with other groups to achieve this.

Increased awareness of and access to healthcare for homeless people. Homelessness and rough sleeping has a catastrophic impact on the health of people affected by it. This can continue long after people are securely housed. The impact is worse, because the people we work with often do not get access to the health services that the rest of us take for granted.  We will work with health services to remove barriers to access, and to help services respond better to their needs.   Services such as the Lambeth Living Well Network, and our own Social Inclusion Project, are able to break down unhelpful barriers between clinical and social support and by doing so provide more effective and  sustainable recovery.

Providing support for non-UK nationals sleeping rough on London’s streets. Non-UK nationals, particularly those from the European Union, are disproportionately represented amongst people on the streets and in insecure accommodation.  With precarious immigration statuses and limited access to  support available, this is set to continue. The majority of the people we have been working with have called London their home for a significant amount of time, and have contributed to our communities in many ways. They have been particularly severely affected by the pandemic, often losing work without the safety net of benefits available to others.  We can help by supporting them into employment and affordable accommodation, and ensuring that they receive the advice that they need.

Thames Reach have signed a letter to the Department of Housing, Communities and Local Government requesting the expansion of the Protect programme based on the principles of Everyone In, as well as ensuring that frontline workers and vulnerable people in emergency accommodation are prioritised for the vaccine(s). Other organisations working in homelessness have also signed the letter: Crisis, Homeless Link, St Mungo’s, Housing Justice, Groundswell, The Passage, Pathway and Faculty for Homeless and Inclusion Health.

New variant SARS-CoV-2: why we must act to protect the lives of people facing homelessness.

As organisations working with people facing homelessness, and delivery partners of the government’s Everyone In scheme, we are calling on the Westminster Government to work with us to urgently sanction the next phase of Everyone In to protect people most exposed to coronavirus.

People facing homelessness are extremely vulnerable to severe health outcomes and mortality from Covid-19. With the discovery of the new SARS-CoV-2 variant, which is believed to be more than 50% more transmissible, there is projected to be a large and rapid increase in incidence with levels of hospitalisations and deaths in 2021 expected to be higher than in 2020.

Current Tier 4 measures put in place to protect people from the new variant are due to be expanded in the new year. These measures, while necessary, are extremely challenging and in some instances impossible to follow whilst homeless including in congregate settings that have shared facilities. For a time-limited period until high levels of vaccine uptake has been achieved, we would like to work with the government to realise:

1. Expansion of the Protect Programme based on the life-saving principles of Everyone In, and including a commitment that no one returns to the streets
2. Ensuring that people who are homeless in emergency accommodation, and frontline staff, are prioriitised for the COID-19 vaccine(s). 

Expanding the Protect Programme based on Everyone In principles

Through the extraordinary efforts of national and local government, nearly 30,000 people have been supported to move into emergency and other forms of accommodation since the start of the pandemic. In London, where the most robust data is available, London Councils reported that on May 4^th there were 3,630 people in emergency accommodation.

 This bold and world-leading action saved lives and relieved pressure on the NHS at a critical time. A recent study published by the Lancet showed that because of this response 266 deaths were avoided during the first wave of the pandemic among England’s homeless population, as well as 21,092 infections, 1,164 hospital admissions and 338 admissions to Intensive Care Units.[1]

 However, as the pressures of the coronavirus pandemic on people’s jobs and lives remain, many continue to be pushed into homelessness as the pressure becomes too much. From July to September 2020 in London, data shows 1,901 people were seen sleeping rough for the first time, which is 55% of the total number of people seen sleeping rough in this period (3,444 people).[2]

While government funding and initiatives have continued to support people sleeping rough, or at risk, into safe accommodation, the funding has had conditions attached. This has meant some people are falling through the gaps in support and therefore remain sleeping on our streets at a time where the new strain of coronavirus makes homelessness a heightened risk to life.

This includes through the new Protect Programme. While incredibly welcome, the programme reaches 10 local authority areas and focuses on supporting people who are defined as clinically vulnerable. However, barriers to accessing healthcare mean that people experiencing homelessness may not be recorded as being clinically vulnerable, even though they would meet this definition if they were diagnosed. Anyone living on the streets and many people who experience other forms of homelessness are by definition vulnerable.

With people newly becoming homeless, and the new strain of coronavirus increasing the rates of the disease, we are ready and willing to work with the government to expand the support available for people sleeping rough or in unsafe accommodation. With the success of Everyone In, local councils and charity partners have the experience of arranging self-contained accommodation, cohorting, and socially distanced support, and can act quickly.

As a result, we would like to work with the Westminster Government to expand the Protect Programme based on Everyone In principles. This will mean all local authorities once again fully funded to support everyone who needs it, regardless of immigration status, local connection, and priority need, into safe and fully self-contained accommodation. Given the increased transmissibility of the new Covid variant, it will be critical that accommodation is provided with individual washing and other facilities to avoid any need for shared spaces.

Once supported into self-contained accommodation, local authorities and support services can also work with individuals as they have continued to do so throughout the pandemic to provide a plan for move-on accommodation. We welcome the move-on options that have been developed as part of the original Everyone In programme and ask for a renewed emphasis on helping people into stable, long-term accommodation to help ensure that no-one is forced to return to the streets when coronavirus restrictions ease.

Ensuring people facing homelessness and frontline staff receive are vaccinated

These measures are urgently needed to not only protect people from the new strain of coronavirus, but to also support access for people facing homelessness to a coronavirus vaccine.

Priority for the vaccine to date has been predominantly based on age. However, parallels can be drawn between the vulnerability shared by the chronologically old and the biologically old, and while age is a key proxy for vulnerability to Covid-19, chronic homelessness could also be considered a valid and justifiable equivalent proxy.

For example, a recent study found that among a sample of homeless hostel residents in London, the levels of frailty were comparable to 89-year-olds in the general population. Participants had an average of seven long-term health conditions, far higher than people in their 90s.

Further, around a third of people who are experiencing the worst forms of homelessness would be deemed ‘clinically vulnerable’ and 1 in 10 would be deemed ‘extremely vulnerable’ to the virus. But unless people who are homeless and vulnerable to the virus are plugged into health services and reached with the vaccine, many people will remain at serious risk of the virus.

The increased threat for people facing homelessness is also recognised by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). It acknowledges the health inequalities faced by people who are homeless and advises that a targeted approach will be needed including through the use of local Screening and Immunisation Teams. As such, we are asking the JCVI to prioritise people who are homeless in emergency accommodation, and frontline staff for vaccination due to increased risk of outbreaks.

This will need to go hand in hand with a comprehensive delivery plan to ensure people facing homelessness can access the vaccine. This should include access to people in provision provided by faith and community groups, or non-commissioned accommodation services such as those supported by the Homelessness Winter Transformation Fund.

Through an expanded Protect Programme which supports people into self-contained accommodation, people facing homelessness most at risk to the dangers of the new strain of coronavirus would be more easily identifiable, which would facilitate provision of the vaccine.

To ensure the success of such an approach, local health and social care teams can be involved in the support offered through the Protect Programme, by ensuring that enhanced infection, prevention and control measures are strictly implemented and adhered to across every facility accommodating people who are homeless.

Again, as delivery partners to local and national government, homelessness charities stand ready to assist the roll-out of vaccination to people facing homelessness and to front-line staff working in homelessness.

[1] Lewer, D. et al (2020) ‘COVID-19 among people experiencing homelessness in England: a modelling study’. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(20)30396-9/fulltext

[2] Combined Homelessness and Information Network (CHAIN) reports: https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/chain-reports

[3] Raphael Rogans-Watson et al. Premature frailty, geriatric conditions and multimorbidity among people experiencing homelessness: a cross-sectional observational study in a London hostel. July 2020.

Photographs and writing created by members of the Deptford Reach community have gone on display at Deptford Lounge, as part of a project with arts charity Create.

Participants created the artwork as part of a 12-week project run by Create, and funded by the Deptford Challenge Trust. Guided by two professional artists, photographer Alicia Clarke and writer James Baldwin, the members of Deptford Reach explored a variety of photographic techniques (including reportage and still-life) and writing styles (including monologues and short stories) in order to express themselves and find their voice.

The resulting artworks are now on public display in the windows at Deptford Lounge until the New Year, and can be seen for free by passers-by.

“I’ve enjoyed every minute of the workshops,” said one of the participants. “I like to do different things with my mind, like using the camera, writing and all that. I enjoy coming here to do it because it gives me something to do instead of sitting down indoors all day doing nothing. It helps me with my mind doing different things.”

Deptford Reach’s ‘Speak With My Voice’ partnership with Create has been running 2008. The project gives vulnerable adults the opportunity to work creatively with professional artists and one another, using photography and creative writing to break down barriers, build relationships and trust, reduce isolation, enhance self-confidence and self-esteem, and have fun.

Nicky Goulder, founding chief executive at Create, said: “This important project gives vulnerable adults the opportunity to work creatively with our professional artists and one another, using photography and creative writing to break down barriers, build relationships and trust, reduce isolation, enhance self-confidence and self-esteem, and have fun. Never has this work been more important, at a time when everyone has experienced increased isolation, and it has been a privilege to enable these participants to express themselves and enhance their wellbeing over the past few months. I hope everyone enjoys the exhibition, which demonstrates their talent so wonderfully.”

Jordan McTigue, lead manager at Deptford Reach, said: “This year has seen our work at Deptford Reach look quite different. While we usually operate as a day centre, we are now providing a floating support service to ensure vulnerable people in the community are not further isolated by the pandemic. Taking part in creative projects is something we know is incredibly beneficial, and well received, towards mental wellbeing, and we’re really pleased that this exhibition with Create is taking place at the heart of the community.”

Alicia Clarke, Create photographer, said: “It has been my pleasure to facilitate photography workshops with attendees of Deptford Reach. Taking inspiration from some famous photographers’ work, and discussing the meaning behind images, were key parts of our workshops, and it was so inspiring to then see the world interpreted through the eyes of the participants. There were lots of diverse interests within the group and I feel that everyone found ways to express themselves, and to enjoy the work of their peers. We had so much fun!”

James Baldwin, Create writer, said: “The group chose to focus on screenwriting and adaptation, speech writing and rhetoric, monologues for theatre, poetry and song, and short stories. Across this display you’ll find the pieces of work that each writer feels represents their voice best. Like a photograph captures a single moment in time, the writer’s writing captures them on that day, in that mood, with those thoughts. A literary snapshot documenting unusual times.”