Step Together Volunteering - For disadvantaged youth

About

At Step Together, we motivate, inspire and enable people who are most excluded from society to participate in community volunteering as a way of helping them to develop the skills, confidence and motivation to turn their lives around.

What we do

We support people with complex needs. We prioritise those for whom other sources of support have failed or alternative support is simply not available.

All of our clients can be described as having complex needs.  We define complex needs as ‘two or more issues affecting physical, mental, social or financial wellbeing’.  These may include mental ill-health, problematic substance or alcohol misuse, current/historical offending, long-term unemployment, critical injury and trauma; experience of domestic violence and abuse; and problems finding and maintaining housing.

Our clients are referred to us by a wide range of partner agencies, including local councils, prisons and probation services, employment services, local community groups and support groups, and larger charities such as the St Giles Trust, Riverside, Help for Heroes and the Princes Trust.

We don’t count the hours or days it takes to affect change; helping people with complex needs takes time and we work flexibly to meet the individual needs of every person we help. Our support includes:

  • One-to-one coaching.
  • Motivating and inspiring.
  • Individual volunteering placements.
  • Mentor support during placements.
Supporting rehabilitation of ex-offenders

Step Together is helping to reduce the number of people who re-offend on leaving prison. Between a quarter and a third of prisoners released from custody in the UK re-offend within a year of being released.

For many, the complex circumstances they face on release present a set of barriers which can seem insurmountable. Without the right support many have little chance of breaking out of a cycle of criminality which is often ingrained in their attitudes, social networks and families.

Volunteering enables people to participate in positive and purposeful diversionary activity, improving integration, building a sense of belonging and involvement and developing a resilience to turn their back on the past. Less than 5% of ex-offenders who receive one-to-one support from Step Together reoffend.

Recovery and rehabilitation through volunteering

Our Rehabilitation through Volunteering programme supports WIS service personnel, veterans and their families across the UK to make significant change in their lives, through one-to-one support and active engagement in the local community as a part of their recovery and resettlement.

As well as physical trauma, many of those referred to us suffer severe anxiety, insomnia and a lack of confidence. Struggling to adjust to their new circumstances they may feel isolated and purposeless. Many struggle to leave the security of their home.

Volunteering provides a focus for the day, a positive outlet for energy, an opportunity to increase social networks and to interact with others in similar situations.

Who to contact

Telephone
0117 955 9042 0117 955 9042
E-mail
admin@step-together.org.uk
Website(s)

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