Move On
Move On is a Charity registered in Scotland (sco26983), and a Company Limited by Guarantee. We have office bases in both Edinburgh and Glasgow, and provide services across the Central belt of Scotland (and sometimes further afield). Originally established as a resettlement service in 1997, Move On now provides a range of services for the prevention and alleviation of homelessness
Move On’s Vision, Mission and Values
Our VISION is that people affected by homelessness in Scotland should have the opportunity to realise their full potential and contribute towards society. Our MISSION is to prevent homelessness, and support people affected by homelessness. Working alongside people, Move On enables them to develop the skills and tools they need to reach their own long-term solutions, leading towards a positive future.
Our VALUES inform how we work and underpin how we deliver our services. They are: Empowering, Challenging (challenging barriers, ourselves, service users, and volunteers in order to promote positive change), being Inclusive (offering flexible and accessible services and an environment where people can feel accepted and included), Respect (treating our service users and volunteers with respect and honesty), Quality (providing a high standard in all our activities), and Consistency (ensuring our values are applied consistently throughout the organisation).
Key Aims and Service Delivery
In order to achieve our mission and realise our vision, we have identified three key aims which shape our service delivery. These are to:
Þ Prevent homelessness and reduce its occurrence among vulnerable groups.
Þ Support people affected by homelessness.
Þ Enable people affected by homelessness to access and sustain further education, employment, training, and volunteering.
Move On believes that homelessness is symptomatic of many other issues and difficulties that people face, so that in addition to addressing issues related to homelessness, our approach needs to identify the underlying issues which have led to, or potentially could lead to, homelessness, and address them, often in partnership with other service providers. For this reason we carry out a wide range of activities aimed at young people to prevent them from becoming homeless, and supporting them to achieve a range of positive outcomes in their lives. We have developed a number of services and approaches for young people and adults to help us to achieve these aims:
· Peer education for vulnerable young people, delivered by young people, providing information and advice on life skills and housing and support needs
· One to one mentoring, targeted at young people leaving residential care and attending Social Emotional Behavioural Difficulty (SEBD) schools
· Offering volunteering opportunities
· Employability-focused personal development group work
· Literacy and numeracy tutoring
· Money and debt advice
These services have enabled vulnerable people, and those affected by homelessness to make real and lasting positive changes in their lives, including accessing and sustaining education, training and employment, stabilising their lives, building basic skills and increasing confidence and self-esteem. Services have proved successful in terms of engaging with those facing multiple problems and difficulties in their lives, as well as those needing a less intensive intervention.
The Housing Education Service
This service offers a peer education approach to encourage “looked after” and other vulnerable young people to make more informed choices when moving towards independence, with the aim of reducing levels of homelessness among this group. The service works with young people who have been homeless and/or have been in care, providing training and support to enable them to share their experiences with other vulnerable young people.
It aims to reduce the extent of homelessness among young people who have been looked after– i.e. young people who have been in social work care. The services uses a peer education approach to encourage “looked after”, homeless and other vulnerable young people to make more informed choices when leaving care, home and other accommodation services, with the aim of reducing levels of homelessness among this group. The Service trains and supports young people who have been homeless and those who are, or have been previously looked after and accommodated, enabling them to become volunteer peer educators who go on to share their experiences with vulnerable young people in a period of transition, delivering advice and information workshops. We are improving our volunteering opportunities, and supporting our volunteers to move on to and sustain other options such as employment, education and training.
Education delivered by those who have been adversely affected by homelessness themselves is regarded as more authentic by young people than being ‘lectured’ by professionals. The Housing Education Service successfully harnesses the skills, experience, enthusiasm and energy of people who have been affected by homelessness, and supports them in delivering a valuable service to looked after young people about to leave care.
The homeless and recently homeless volunteers gain skills and confidence to move on to employment, training and more stable lifestyles.
Volunteers
All the work of the Housing Education Team is delivered by volunteers, supported by staff. All volunteers are aged between 17 and 28 and have experienced homelessness in various ways, including sleeping rough, staying in hostels, etc. Around half of our volunteers were looked after in residential care, and most have some history of engaging with social work.
The Mentoring Service
Move On has developed the Mentoring Service for young care leavers over the last five years and the main aim is to aid the transition and improve a range of outcomes for young people in their journey from care into adulthood and more independent living. Through the uptake of social, cultural and leisure opportunities, the service seeks to encourage positive image, raise self-esteem and social confidence. Additionally the young people benefit from their relationship with their volunteer mentor discouraging dependency on paid workers.
On average Mentor meetings happen 2-3 times a month and generally last between 2-3 ½ hours a time, depending on the focus of the activities. Some examples of the activities include: singing lessons, motor bike maintenance, learning to handle birds of prey, cinema, golfing lessons, socialising, going to a comedy club and much more.
To date our experience has been that where a mentoring relationship has time to develop, young people achieve a range of benefits. Each matched pair set goals and targets, and to date young people have had considerable success in achieving these. Although the route to achieving goals is social and leisure activities, soft indictors are sometimes more important in the development of the young people, (and the mentors). These include increased self awareness and self worth, as well as confidence, self esteem and being more able to make informed choices about the direction of their own lives.
Inspiring Scotland
This project develops supportive pathways for young people not engaged in school, training, further education or employment, leading them towards these options, and supporting them to sustain them. These pathways have clear goals and a clear employability focus, but will incorporate flexibility in the style of delivery, enabling young people to progress at their own pace, and offering support and encouragement when they experience difficulties and backwards steps. There are two separate and complimentary pathways; volunteering and mentoring:
The mentoring pathway offers a supported route for young people aged 14–17 who will benefit from a focused and supportive 1:1 approach involving a volunteer mentor (aged 18 upwards). This pathway as well as building confidence, and focusing on setting and achieving goals will lead them back into re-engaging at school, and on to other options.
The volunteering pathway aimed at young people aged 16-19 targets those who need less in the way of intensive 1:1 support, but who can benefit from peer support and working in a group, and who need to increase their skills, confidence, and self-esteem, in order to make a successful transition into employment, further education, and training. The flexible and supportive nature of the volunteering on offer is crucial to building confidence and self-esteem among young people, starting them off on the pathway to employment.
Adult Literacy & Numeracy
Offering one to one and groupwork sessions to enable service users to feel more confident in their reading, writing, spelling, number work and oral communication. This service is available to all Move On service users and people affected by a range of issues such as homelessness, addiction and mental health.
Money & Debt Advice Service (MADAS)
The service provides:
Advice / assistance to those unable or unwilling to access financial services, Advice on income maximization Advice on benefits, including housing benefit, back to work and in-work benefits. Support and advice on problems of debt / multiple debt, household bills etc. Literacy and numeracy training /support (including financial literacies). Budgeting skills to enable better management of money, reducing future debt, reducing current debts and improve financial capability
Visiting Support (Edinburgh)
This is a service to provide housing support to people at risk of becoming homeless, who are homeless or have recently experienced homelessness, to enable then to avoid a housing crisis or obtain and/or sustain their tenancy. Support is given in their own tenancy.
Befriending Service (Edinburgh)
The befriending service will help anyone with a tenancy who has previously experienced being homeless, get back on their feet socially, or help find ways to do things people find difficult on their own. Service Users are matched with a like minded ‘befriender’ who is a trained volunteer.
FareShare (Glagow)
Move On has led a successful pilot of FareShare Greater Glasgow and Clyde, which has brought the highly successful “FareShare” model of food redistribution to Glasgow. FareShare operates through local third sector organizations in 12 UK locations, including Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh.
The FareShare operation take surplus “fit for purpose” produce from the food and drinks industry and distributed to organizations working with disadvantaged people in the community, addressing the important issues of food poverty and food waste.
This project has connected major food retailers and producers around Glasgow to local communities in need, redistributing the surplus food products via trained and motivated volunteers. The FareShare project will:
1. Tackle food poverty among Glasgow’s most socially disadvantaged groups
2. Offer training and work experience to assist the most socially disadvantaged groups – more specifically young people and homeless people into employment
3. Promote Healthy eating, nutrition and sale food handling
4. Make a positive impact on health and wellbeing through improved diet
5. Minimize food deposited to landfill, significantly reducing damaging CO2 and methane gas emissions.