Targeted Life Support and Coaching

After a number of years and lots learned the Brierley Hill Project is going through a major restructure. BHP is growing from: a staff dependent, people-centred model measured by the popularity of sessions, to an outcome-centred model measured by progress in people who access the services. We will keep you updated as things progress and look forward to launching a new website in the middle of October with all you need to know on there. Thanks for all of your support!!

Fitness, visiting and a rap!

The keep fit group is doing a great job helping local people to be fit and active in a fun way, numbers have grown and another 10 week course will start in April.

The community visiting team has had some of their clients in hospital this week, so they went to visit them there. One man said it had made him feel a lot better as he saw them walk onto the ward, he said he’d missed the team and couldn’t find the words to say how much the visits mean to him.

One of our volunteers has been released to carry the Fairtrade message into schools. 10 different schools have joined together and have taken part in writing about Fairtrade and then a local rap talent pulled their words together into a rap song.

Good news!

The BHP are delighted to say that we have been successful with a grant from the BIG Lottery for £8732!! This is to help us look at future sustainability now that our 5 year contract with the lottery is coming to an end. The money will be spent on a consultant to help with the restructure, various essential training courses for staff and a new website….

Fun, socials and work.

The holiday club has been full of excited children in the last few weeks, playing lots of games, drawing, colouring and just getting to know one and other, and us. We have had some new children this year which is great news.

We held one of our community socials to create a relaxed space for people who live on the estate to gather together and chat while enjoying jacket potatoes and listening to live music.

Work on the graveyard has started again, the volunteers have enjoyed the sun, hard work and chips!

Teamwork

This last couple of weeks has had lots of activity including 7 volunteer staff from Juniper Training painting our drop-in area. A handyman gave up a days work to oversee things and a volunteer from the café also helped.

Community visiting is going really well, we have lots of wonderful stories from the volunteers visiting clients in their homes. We have also dealt with people who have incredibly difficult situations ranging from imprisonment, domestic violence, loss or delay of benefits, housing challenges and much more. These are intense situations that take a lot of time with one to one support from our staff and volunteers, often calling in partners from other agencies to give more experienced and skilled support in certain areas.

Amazing efforts from Sainsbury’s as always!

Sainsbury’s staff continue to amaze us!! There was a raffle drawn on 16/12/11 which has raised another £412.70 for the BHP. We would also like to say a massive thank you to Mason Metals who have contributed £60 of food towards the hampers which we have been able to distribute to a number of families around the local area

Happy Christmas!

This week has been very busy with lots of people through the door. We have had great openings and opportunities to meet practical needs. Lots of children’s gifts have been donated through the Foodbank and DCVS, this has helped us support several families with clothes, toys and food. Community visiting was also productive this week, again we met practical needs through cleaning and household chores.
We had our BHP Christmas party last week that went down a treat, with staff, volunteers, trustees and some service users all mixing together in a fun night out!!
We as a BHP team want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Confidence from BHP

In May we have seen a number of our volunteers making great strides because of the increase in their confidence after being involved at BHP. Among them, we have one who has completed an 8 week training course when completing anything before was always a major issue. Another after working with toddlers and community visiting has now got a job and is returning to work.

Start of November sees new structure at BHP

We are now in the restructure and Andrea has started her new position as project worker alongside Stacey from the 1st November. John Cook has moved down to ACC and will be undertaking different roles at the church as well as a few things outside of the ACC setting with the local authority and different churches etc. However as some of you have asked he would like to clarify, he hasn’t left the BHP completely. He’s now a trustee again as he’s not paid by the project and he also has a role as operational manager which means he will try to keep the project in line with the BHP business plan as well as day to day support for the project team. Tracey has picked up all of the financial responsibilities and Peter is looking after Human resources and also the staff and volunteers personal development. So we are in full swing and excited about this next stage of the BHP.