Over the last 16 years the Good Shepherd Ministry has reached out to thousands of individuals and families living in crisis. At present, we have 1081 registered service users with 59 different nationalities represented. There’s a wide age range of people accessing our services from 18 through to 80 years old. Most (54%) are between 26- 45 but we also have 15% over 65 and 12% between 18 and 25.

We provide support and guidance to some of the most vulnerable and marginalised people in the community. Our main client groups are rough sleepers, people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, families with support needs, people with multiple complex needs, destitute asylum seekers and people with no recourse to public funds.

We offer individuals a postal address and rough sleeper’s a shower and laundry facilities as well as emergency clothing, support services and pastoral care. We serve a hot meal six days a week and distribute family and individual food parcels once a week.

Good Shepherd hosts a range of agencies in the centre including hairdressers, specialist dentists, opticians, drug and alcohol services, employability and housing support. This allows clients to get referrals, support or advice to improve their situations and circumstances. We have 2 religious brothers that volunteer their time at the service offering pastoral care and supporting the day to day running of the charity.

Offering a meal in our dining room allows us to interact and communicate with individuals to get an understanding of the barriers and problems they are facing. In the last 3 months we’ve supported 37 homeless/rough sleepers into accommodation, 10 people have been prevented from rough sleeping through non housing interventions, 12 people supported into employment and 8 service users have been trained and worked on our structured volunteer programme.

Service user programme.

We offer clients opportunities to volunteer within our centre. This programme supports service users to access suitable accommodation, move towards employment, access training or education and develop skills to build self-reliance and resilience.

Each programme attendee works alongside a case manager who guides and supports them along the journey of change. Working in a team helps to build confidence and break down barriers as they connect with other volunteers, staff and their peers. Volunteering gives a sense of purpose, builds structure in their lives and gives them a reference for future employment.

Let’s Engage Programme.

After listening to the issues and challenges people living on the streets and hostels face, we have developed an evening programme offering activities to give our service users a new focus and direction in life. The Programme reduces isolation and gives people a safe environment on the evenings where they can engage in meaningful activity and build a positive peer network.

Volunteers

Good Shepherd has over 60 volunteers who freely give their time to support us in the work we do. Many of our volunteers are retired and are from professional backgrounds so they have a range of skills and knowledge which is transferable to the work we do.

Donated Food and Goods

We work with a range of food partners to tackle both food waste and food hunger. We’re fortunate to get a large quantity of food items donated and in the last three months this equated to over £10k in free stock which we were able to use in our dining room. This ranged from meat products, fish, pies, vegetables and desserts