It’s very important when working with challenging people that the door is always left slightly ajar to retuning to services when you have no option but to exclude them. Over the years at The Wellspring I have had to bar hundreds of people. These are chellenging people, people with needs and issues that we are…
YOUTH HOMELESSNESS – Read all about it……
Youth homelessness is an increasingly concerning issue. Over the last few years I’ve recorded and documented a rise in youth homelessness, more and more young people under 25 are becoming homeless. Why? Well a multitude of different reasons but very commonly, easy reasons to address and fix. Fixing the issues of youth homelessness are often…
Wellspring Pure Radio December 2015
Wellspring feature on Pure Radio December 2015.
Well there is this Estonian chap….
A couple of years ago I become aware of a young man called Peter who was using The Wellspring everyday and was rough sleeping in one of the caves in Stockport. I got to know this young man by chatting to him by using Google translate as his English was not good. He told me he had…
Dont feed the habbit
Giving money to people begging in the street may seem like a decent generous thing to do, doing your bit to help someone out who is less fortunate than yourself is a selfless thing to do. However on average 90% of all money given to people in the street is spent on drugs or alcohol….
The dark days are over
I started working for The Wellspring charity around 15 years ago. I remember my first day very clearly. I walked up to the back of the building where one of the then management committee had arranged to meet me. I was a little early so sidestepped the 2 rather large dead rats in the car…
The window of opportunity
Over the years I’ve met so many people who have been so entrenched with problems that they could not possibly contemplate possitive change. I’ve always thought of these people as bricked up windows, people who are going though the motions and plodding along with no real intent to do anything other than whatever it is…
Legal highs. I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want…..
legal highs have been available to buy for many years and up until around 2 years ago they were relatively unknown and harmless. Certainly the use of them in the homeless community was more or less none existant. Today in 2015 they are rife. Many homeless people have taken to using these drugs on a…
That last conversation
A wise worker once told me many years ago that you never know when your last conversation with anyone of our client group will be. This is something that has stayed with me and very much influenced my way of working with homeless people. The statement is so true, you just never know when your…
Homelessness is a symptom
Living on the streets in the UK is not an easy experience, I see first hand on a daily basis the trails and tribulations, the pain and sorrow that homeless people endure daily. Everyday can be such a chore, a drawn out process of eat, drink, rough sleep, repeat. Over the years of having the…