Information for Supporters

Crisis Care

For people who are sleeping rough and at risk of homelessness, we offer help to find stable accommodation, provide food, clothing, shower and laundry facilities. Often the people most at risk of homelessness have chaotic and damaged lives and come from difficult backgrounds.

We work with a variety of vulnerable people from former rough sleepers to ex-offenders with mental health problems.  In fact, over 90% of our clients have either mental health or addiction problems and sometimes both. We work with some of the most difficult to reach socially excluded groups and help them move towards stabilizing their lives so that their focus can move on towards recovery and employment.

Recovery

We have proven success in supporting people through recovery from homelessness and into employment. People who have experienced rough sleeping, mental health problems, drug or alcohol addiction or complex traumas have a massive challenge to get their life back on track, but transformation requires a choice to change from within.

Our team works with sensitivity and expertise to facilitate that change, in a way that is right for each individual. We do advocate abstinence based recovery from substance use and work closely with Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and Betel UK.

Skills Training and Employment Services

A poor education is often a contributing factor to homelessness, while unmet physical and mental health needs can seriously compromise a person’s employability. At SHOC we are dealing with the most difficult groups to find employment, groups for which conventional training programs just do not work.

For the homeless and socially excluded, it has been proven that:

“training needs to have flexible attendance requirements, small learning steps, given by tutors who empathise with their situation in an environment in which they feel comfortable and not threatened and where their other needs are addressed alongside those for learning”

– (Crisis report published in 2006 Missed Opportunities: the case for investment in learning and skills for homeless people).

We work closely with Slough Borough Council Lifelong Learning who recognize SHOC as ideally situated to deliver skills training to vulnerable people with specific needs who simply would not have the confidence to access training elsewhere.