New Derbyshire Homeless Street Outreach Team
Our new homeless street outreach team based in Chesterfield, Derbyshire started working on 1 February. The team have now been offering support to people who are homeless and sleeping rough across the whole county for the last six weeks.
Staff are currently working with 22 people across the region, who are surviving on the streets in Chesterfield, Shirebrook and Belper, and others in more remote rural locations. We are passionate about and trained to support people who are vulnerable and often alone. We work with them to gain their trust and get them off the streets into stable and safe accommodation – and to get their lives back on track.
Jan Harrison, manager for the new service stated: “Our teams are out early in the morning across the county responding to calls from the public, Street Link and sometimes families to locate people sleeping on the streets and work with them, to motivate and encourage them to engage with us. The help we offer includes not only support accessing accommodation, but also dealing with the reasons why people become homeless, such as relationship breakdowns, debt, drug and alcohol issues, mental health and poor physical health.
“Once someone is known to us we will work with them to get them safe – a big part of this is establishing their trust – only then can we begin the process of reconnecting them with their community.
“By working in close partnership with other local providers, local people and services we ensure the people we are working with can access the full range of support they need. We are working closely with the public, Derbyshire’s local authorities, police, faith and community groups, and other voluntary services to identify and support people who are homeless and people sleeping rough across the region.
“Our team are in Chesterfield every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.”
If you know about a rough sleeper then please contact P3’s homeless street outreach team on: 0808 196 8199.
CLICK HERE to read about the new service in the Derbyshire Times.
