Homeslessness organisations get a boost from Poached

by Yousif Farah

It’s been a busy year for Poached in 2014, not least because we’ve been able to work with a number of homelessness organisations through our collaborative projects.

Our latest collaboration will see us join forces with the Pavement magazine. The Pavement was founded in 2005 as a registered charity in response to the increasing need of a publication focused on homelessness and directed at those affected by it.

The magazine is concise and informative. It could be described as a rough sleeper’s A to Z, providing the reader with a list of day centres, soup kitchens and places to gather advice and assistance regarding housing.  It also has features on health, legal advice and an insider’s view of life in hostels. It also covers the journalistic aspects of homelessness through comprehensive coverage of the news from the streets, often dealing with topics neglected by the mainstream press.

Even though the publication relies on volunteers, they are highly trained and experienced journalists and homeless sector professionals, also among the volunteers are some of the country’s best cartoonists (many of them Private Eye contributors). Some of our own Big Issue online journalism trainees have contributed articles to The Pavement in recent months.

The Pavement is well established in London, Scotland and the West Midlands, with over 4,000 copies distributed to over 70 hostels, day centres, homeless surgeries, soup-runs and libraries in London alone.

Its sole purpose is to support people at times of crisis, aiming to make life that bit easier for homeless people through providing them with information that can both help reduce short-term hardship, as well as enable them to guide their own future. The Pavement relies entirely on donations by public, to donate or read more visit The Pavement.

As well as working with the Pavement, we got a welcome and rather unusual offer of support from the world of music.

When blues artists Mete Ege got in touch with Poached offering to donate the proceeds of his new single Ghosts of London to support our Big Issue online journalism training programme, we were thrilled to accept this unexpected yet generous offer! The song draws from Mete’s own experience of sleeping rough in the capital: “Knowing that the money from the sales will be used to train homeless people feels right. Everyone deserves a chance to break the vicious cycle.”

Finally, in October, we helped to promote a comedy gig to raise funds for the Hackney Winter Night Shelter, which provides rough sleepers in the borough with a bed for the night, a hot meal and a warm smile.  Headlined by Stewart Lee and compered by Daniel Kitson, A Belter for the Shelter was a huge success and our writer Martin was there to review it. 

Big Issue Journalism Course starts!

Christopher. Photo by Gordon Chaston

We're thrilled that our Big Issue Online Journalism training course started last week, in its brand new home in the Deptford Lounge, South London.

The six-week course teaches journalism skills in writing and photography, and is aimed at people who are homeless, long-term unemployed or otherwise marginalised.

One of our new recruits - Christopher Ubsdell - is a regular contributor to online magazine the Pavement.

He shared his experience of the first week of the course with us:

"I came home after that first week with a sense of having completed something. A feeling of minor achievement. The next five weeks are going to be challenging but I'm looking forward to getting stuck in and learning how to improve my copy and other journalism skills. I think the course appeals to my inner need of story telling, which will only grow from here."

Read about his the rest of his experience on the Big Issue Online Journalists blog.

Tackling homelessness through ETE

Research has shown that over a third of people who use homeless services don’t have the formal qualifications they need to find employment or to participate in and enjoy full and active lives.  Numerous reports have highlighted the need for coordinated and specialist education, training and employment support for homeless people.

Housing support services have long recognised that housing in itself will not provide a complete answer to the risks and consequences of homelessness.  There is a general consensus that the availability of specialist education, training and employment (ETE) services has improved over the last ten years and have played a key role at local level, usually being seen as flexible and supportive by other agencies and people.

Homeless people often experience significant barriers in engaging formal education; the advantages are clear and include greater social integration, confidence and self-esteem. This would give a boost to homeless people who have a strong academic background but need to update their qualifications or to re-familiarise with them. Successive governments have also taken the view that paid work is beneficial in a number of ways; it provides a route out of poverty and it can address the sense of purposelessness, lack of direction and poor self-image that may be present among people who have not worked for sustained periods.

However, many studies have emphasised the need to tackle the problems and barriers single homeless people face in securing training and employment. Some of these problems and barriers include low education attainment, little or no work experience which puts homeless people at a disadvantage, problematic drug use and poor physical and mental health which renders them unemployable.

There are also homeless people that have a history of employment, have qualifications and can perhaps with help, make a move back into paid work relatively simply. In some cases they have complex needs and need a great deal of support before the transition to seeking paid work is a viable option. This means that there are unmet support needs, low levels of self assurance, a lack of interpersonal skills and also an inability to structure their time means they cannot immediately use mainstream services designed to help with job seeking, let alone secure paid work for themselves.

Research carried out by St Mungo’s Broadway suggests that people in this group may benefit from activities that allow them to develop interpersonal skills; emotional literacy, assertiveness and self-esteem, as well from programmes designed to deliver meaningful activity or ‘sheltered’ forms of employment prior to acquiring more formal qualifications.

From experience, front-line housing support workers have frequently voiced concerns that recent legislative changes have failed to recognise adequately the vulnerability of young homeless people and that individuals with particularly traumatic histories were at risk of being pushed out into mainstream programmes before they were ready.

That put aside, there is clear evidence that education, training and employment (ETE) services are beneficial to homeless people. The ETE sector has grown very significantly over the years and is characterised by innovation, diversification and experimentation with many different forms of service being developed.

Poached Creative has been working with The Big Issue to provide practical training in communications and journalism for people who are homeless and long­-term unemployed or facing significant barriers to employment. The training has been really successful and has seen some of the trainees regain confidence to pursue recognised journalism qualifications, write articles for print media such as The Pavement, The Telegraph, and E9 magazine. Some have found work as photographers.

There is a very strong need for coordinated and specialist education for training and employment support for homeless people by service providers. This is imperative as resources might be subject to constraint in future. There is a need for caution, in that it is logical to expect that wider labour market conditions will have an effect on ETE effectiveness.  Realism is needed when considering the scale of barriers that a minority of homeless people face in relation to securing paid work. With appropriate ETE and support paid work can be secured, it can help a person overcome the material and psychological effects of being homeless. 

Big Issue online journalist training to re-start!

Anil launches his bike hire business

Our Big Issue online journalist training course, which trains marginalised people in writing or photography, has successfully secured funding for two more courses, thanks to the Evening Standard Dispossessed Fund. 

Our volunteer Press Officer, Yousif Farah, reflects on how the training made a positive difference to his life and the lives of his fellow trainees:

"Since completing the course Anil has seen his dreams materialise into reality by launching a bike hire business; Danielle has regained her confidence to be a successful journalist once again, Chris is working as a successful freelance filmmaker and Sam has joined the NUJ and interviewed household names such as Russell Brand and Caroline Lucas MP. To name just a few of the great stories."

Check out the full article at the Big Issue online journalists blog.

Volunteering, free labour or a lifeline?

Picture by: Anil Parmer, Poached
Creative's fifth birthday party

It is often argued that volunteers are the backbone of the charity sector, according to the Guardian 91% of charities are entirely run by unpaid staff. However, volunteering is mutually beneficial to volunteers as well as employers, it is a two way stream, and based on my brief experience as a volunteer with Poached Creative I could argue that it is more rewarding to the volunteer than to the company itself.

I would not be exaggerating if I say that volunteering is transforming my life by the minute. 

  

Looking back at my life one year ago, I was in turmoil; depressed, experiencing all sorts of family conflicts, having to drop out of University, losing my flat, being imprisoned twice in the space of one year. My life was a mortifying chapter from a horror book. I was in an utter state of despair; I woke up every day thinking the End of the world is past noon. I would never have envisaged digging myself out of that hole.

However, I was very fortunate to learn about Poached Creative through The Big Issue on line journalism course. A course provided by Poached Creative in conjunction with the Big Issue; at the time I lacked the drive, and the motivation to start something new. I missed two initial induction interviews.  And when I thought that I messed it up for myself. The managing director of Poached Creative Jessica Smith contacted me again, and we scheduled another interview which this time I attended. I am ever indebted to her patience.

I then attended the six week Journalism course, which was a turning point in my life. Not only did I acquire new skills.   The whole experience profoundly impacted the way I perceived my future, it instilled a sense of optimism and hope towards the future, which incentivised  me to work harder and improve myself. The depression and helplessness I was feeling began to fade away by the week.

I successfully completed the course and progressed to a volunteering role within Poached Creative, which is a design and writing social enterprise.

Having something to wake up to makes all the difference, it drives you to work harder and open your eyes to opportunities you would otherwise have missed. It enriches your experience and boosts your morale.