Youth homelessness: Bishop of Sheffield praises Roundabout charity's 'incredible' work

The Bishop of Sheffield learned about their work with the Roundabout Charity when he was introduced to the team at the youth homelessness charity this week.

On Thursday, February 17, The Bishop of Sheffield, Rt Revd Pete Wilcox, visited the Roundabout Hostel to meet the staff, volunteers and members behind all the fantastic work done at the youth homelessness charity.

Roundabout is South Yorkshire’s youth homelessness charity, founded in 1977, aiming to make sure no young person in South Yorkshire experiences homelessness.

Since it began, the charity has run a youth hostel in Sheffield, providing shelter and safe accommodation for up to 27 young homeless people aged 16 to 21.

Alongside the hostel, Roundabout has five self-contained flats, which it uses to develop the skills and individuality of the young people after staying in the hostel, to let them live alone while still being supported by Roundabout.

Every day, the charity supports more than 300 young people through a variety of services it offers to young people with the help of its amazing staff.

Roundabout’s CEO, Ben Keegan, said: “We were delighted to welcome the Bishop of Sheffield to Roundabout and share with him all the work we are doing with vulnerable young people across South Yorkshire.

"This is a great programme of support for young people who come to us at their most vulnerable but we could not provide that support without the continued support of the people of South Yorkshire, which is why the bishop’s visit was so important to us.”

The Rt Revd Pete Wilcox was eager to find out about all the work done by the hostel and charity as a whole.

Hostel manager Lisa told the bishop about all the work which takes place there, including teaching the young people life skills and getting them prepared for employment, and about the challenges they face.

She talked about the importance of getting the youngsters onto benefits or into employment and helping them to balance their budgets and be able to buy food and provide for themselves, all while being fully supported by staff.

Roundabout also supports young people from the hostel once they have left the hostel, or during difficulty in their own tenancies.

Chris Ware, a tenancy support worker at Roundabout, said: “I help people when they move on from the hostel or they are in their own tenancy and are finding it difficult.

"I will go out to meet them in their own home, look at how I can help create a support plan and then work with them to achieve their goals and maintain that tenancy.

The charity also has some peer educators – trained people who have experienced homelessness and go out to schools to help break down stereotypes, explore the reasons for youth homelessness and share their experiences.

Hayley Mcbeth, peer education worker at Roundabout, explained more about the role of peer educators and their importance.

"We run peer education projects which is part of the prevention service, which involves young people who have been in Roundabout services in the past and lived experiences of homelessness, getting involved and trained up to deliver sessions in schools,” she said.

"A lot of them are doing it because they want that experience and want to maybe get into youth work.”

Skylar is a peer educator who was in the Roundabout hostel three times and benefited from tenancy support work to, would like to get into the field of helping young people and is very grateful for all the charity has done for him.

"It was terrifying when I first started (going into schools). My first school was Meadowhead and it was an observation session, but it was still daunting - I get heckled by the students but I have now gotten used to it.”

Explaining the work of the peer educators, Ben Keegan, the CEO of Roundabout, said: “The idea is that we try and, first of all, prevent homelessness, so it is young people that are having problems at home, so we try and cut barriers so they don’t become homeless.

"We have a mediation service, where we have workers who work with parents and young people – we try and mediate the kind of things causing tension.

"It is also about young people knowing where to get help, if they need to, post-16 and thinking of leaving home, they know about our prevention services.”

The Rt Revd Pete Wilcox said one of the best part of his job was meeting great people, like the staff at Roundabout, doing great things for the community.

"I do get to meet some incredible people doing incredible things in the community, so I will be talking about this (meeting Roundabout) for the rest of this week, and that’s a great privilege,” he said.

"I get to meet young people who are on that journey, trying to work out how they want to live and have latched onto Jesus and we have a ceremony that we call confirmation when they make a public commitment that they are going to live as a Christian – I love those occasions.”

Roundabout commits a great deal of help to young people in homelessness and all the donations it receives go towards helping young people who suffer from homelessness and supporting them through the stages until they have a house and employment and are able to live independently.

Funds go towards things such as paying for hotels when they have no room at the hostel, providing resources and essentials for the young people and also building the life skills of these people with events such as trips to the countryside and camping.

To find out more about Roundabout, or to donate to the charity, visit: https://www.roundabouthomeless.org/.