Meet the team behind Roundabout’s Homeless Prevention Service

For many of those young people, their first point of contact with Roundabout will be the Homeless Prevention Service, based in the heart of Sheffield city centre at Union Street and there to offer advice and support.

The overall aim of the service is to help reduce the need for young people to present as homeless, keeping them safe and off the streets.

It’s an often challenging environment but one that the team working within the Homeless Prevention Service say has many rewards.

Will Shaw has been with Roundabout for three years and was originally part of the fundraising team before moving over to the Peer Education Service, the project dedicated to educating students under 18 about homelessness in a friendly and engaging way.

“I’d been in a series of jobs I didn’t have an emotional connection to and wanted to do something I was passionate about and would mean dedicating my time for good, which is exactly how I feel about Roundabout,” he explains.

“I enjoyed my time in fundraising but wanted to work more closely with the young people we support and I can say now that I love the job I do and I have a lot of fun.”

Anybody who is within the Roundabout support system is eligible to be a peer educator, receiving the training from Will that enables them to go into schools to talk to students about youth homelessness and the work that Roundabout does, trying to demystify it, talking about the different reasons that young people become homeless and what that might look like.

“A lot of people don’t realise that 60 per cent of homelessness is caused by family breakdown and with that in mind, we spend a lot of time talking about Talk It Out, our mediation service,” Will says.

“The young people I work with may come to me with fairly low confidence, they might not have gone to college or even engaged with school very well but I hope I can give them the skills and experience they need to share their story.

“It’s great to see their confidence grow so much when they go into schools and the work I do with them gives them a way to share their story in their own words, which is so important and empowering for them.

“I am very proud of all our peer educators - they are all doing so well.”

Also based at Union Street, Hayley McBeth started at Roundabout three years ago, initially in peer education but then moving on to become an Employment and Skills Support Worker.

She encourages young people to access Roundabout’s full range of services, helping them with any kind of training, volunteering or employment opportunities.

“We’re there to support with vocational courses, going to college or university and applying for work or volunteer placements and if they’re not ready to work we will look at getting them enrolled in things like employability courses, getting them used to things like team building and being ready for the working environment,” Hayley says.

“It’s always very interesting because it’s the sort of role that gives you the chance to know a bit more about the young people you’re supporting, trying to work out what makes them enthusiastic.

“They really do have some very varied interests - so there is always a surprise in store!

“It can be quite difficult to engage their attention at first and a lot of times you might get some disengagement but that’s because they don’t have the confidence to go out into the workplace but we keep going, we keep trying.”

She adds that one of the major issues the team face is that the fact that many of the young people they support have experienced a lack of self belief and don’t imagine they can have a working life style because they don’t have much to offer.

“When they do get enthusiastic about something, it really does make you want to help them even more and half the battle is finding the something they will enjoy,” she says.

Another key part of the job is making connections with companies who are keen to improve their social responsibility and offer opportunities to young people.

“Sometimes there can be a lack of understanding – naturally, business owners want their staff to turn up on time and be capable, or have previous experience of a role,” she concedes.

“As our young people have been through so much, and are still building an understanding of their expectations and capabilities, there are often ups and downs with their progress.”

“But we have a lot of success stories which we probably don’t celebrate enough because they are happening all around us every day.”

Will Saxton joined Roundabout a year ago and is a Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioner, working as part of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Service, Mind Over Chatter, which provides a safe space for young people to discuss their daily challenges and provide them with the tools they need to make positive steps forward.

“Anybody who is part of Roundabout can access our support, which offers a one-to-one focus on all kinds of mental health issues, including anxiety, stress and anger,” he says.

“It gives the people I support a chance to sit down and work towards resolving any issues they want to focus on.

“Every session is unique to the person I am talking to but that’s what makes it so special and I love to be able to say that my job is very people focused.

“I love sitting down and talking to people and getting to know them and, once you have established that level of trust, I get an enormous amount of job satisfaction from the people I support.

“I feel so lucky and so blessed that Roundabout are able to support me and give me the space to get out there and talk to people about whatever they want.

“These young people want help but often it isn’t there and we aim to provide a service that fits in with their needs.”

Will has a case load of around 14 - some people he might see twice a week and others he’ll see just when they need him.

“I can honestly say that I genuinely look forward to going to work and that I have never had a job like this before,” he admits.

“I have sessions all over Sheffield and I love the flexibility of being able to see somebody where they’re most comfortable - sometimes in their own space or our office, or we can go to a cafe or for a walk - it really doesn’t matter where you are so long as people feel comfortable and safe.”

To find out more about Roundabout’s full range of services visit www.roundabouthomeless.org