Olympic Voices - by Tom, Providence Row Art Project member

Well!

The opening of Olympic Voices is this week at Rich Mix.

Shiraz asked me to write a final blog for our project and I have been putting it off till now.

Why?

I suppose most of the summary will be contained for you within your own mind as you watch along with the still images and the videos. The summary is open ended. The conclusions are yet to be realised.

The Olympians, one and all, we Came, we Saw and we were Conquered. We were Conquered by the talent on display in front and beside us. We were overwhelmed by the greatness of the collective human spirit of togetherness both on the track and field at all the events. The people came and went inclusive of athletes and supporters.

Openness, good humour, joy, expectation of politeness with the cooperation of corporate support. The build up of the negative and positive expectation prior to the arrival of the event.

Enjoying the individual moments, special to all of us, etched into our own minds, of those brief summer weeks, of the memories of the Olympic Summer of 2012.

The brief interlude of flatness between the Olympics and the Paralympics.

The final goodbyes,

The political speeches,

The farewells, the bonhomie and last pats on the back.

Then gone.

Corporateness seen and unseen.

Back to the realities of life in London as another winter approaches.

For me, I enjoyed the whole experience of the project working on both the sound and the videos. No couch potato at this event. With the loss of my Scouse Teddy Bear, I had to drop my alter ego and appear in front of, rather than behind, the camera. No hiding behind Teddy at the end of this project allowing a growth in confidence of me and a glimpse of me by me, and relaxed enough to share.

I hope you enjoy the project as much as I did.

Tom.


Olympic Voices runs from 14-28 November at Rich Mix, 35-47 Bethnal Green Road, E1 6LA. Entry is free.
More information can be found on our website or on Rich Mix’s website.  

Olympian Efforts

I have been enjoying the Olympics and Paralympics very much this summer.  I’ll be one of those sad and bereft people when it’s all over – wondering what to do with my time in the evenings.  

 As I watched the Paralympic opening ceremony last week, I reflected on the number of countries represented there. Krishnan Guru-Murthy and John Snow were commentating.  It was educating as well as entertaining.  As the different national teams entered the stadium, we were reminded about which ones were war torn, experiencing political corruption or recent natural disaster.  All the countries and all of the participants were welcome.  We were also reminded that the Paralympics represents what people can do, not what they can’t – showing what’s possible. 

Last week, we received a visit from an old client of ours, Amir.  He’s from Somalia.  He has refugee status and has indefinite leave to remain in this country.  He, like Krishnan Guru Murthy, reminds us of places in the world where life is very tough.  Amir participated in our Trainee Scheme, helping to serve breakfasts in the morning for all of our clients.  As part of the scheme, clients also receive help and support to look for work.  In addition, staff from one of our company supporters - Veni Partners - run a recruitment workshop for clients every few months. Amir is now working full time maintaining our railways – an important role as many commuters will appreciate.  I really hope he does a good job and I’m sure he will. 

By coincidence, we also heard from another Trainee Scheme graduate.  Jack is British.  He spent some time in prison and had nowhere to go when he was released.  After sleeping rough, eventually he moved into a hostel.  Jack came to us for help because he wanted to get a job. He had already reflected a lot on things and wanted to make some changes in his life.  He wanted to become a support worker.  He knew that his criminal convictions would make this difficult for now but he wanted to do a job which made a difference. 

Jack got a job shortly afterwards with a sales company specialising in fundraising for charities.  He is delighted and he loves it.  When he came in to tell us he’d got the job, he looked so smart that staff initially didn’t recognise him.  He said “this time last year I was sleeping on the streets”.

Much has already been written in the media about the uniting effect the Olympics has had in GB.  Only a few weeks ago the nation was united in cheering on another Somalian refugee, Mo Farah.  We also cheered on Greg Rutherford, Jessica Ennis, Bradley Wiggins, Nicola Adams, David Weir, Hannah Cockcroft, Ellie Simmonds and so many more.  Apparently we've also been very sporting in our appreciation of athletes from all countries competing in the games.

Obviously both Amir and Jack have faced a very different set of challenges, trials and tribulations to Mo Farah and all of our other athletes.  However, for me the impact of their achievements is similar.  When you spend time getting to know people, finding out about their life, find out what problems they have to overcome, what their hopes and fears are, it’s very hard not to care.  Sports commentators help us to feel involved with the athletes by providing interviews, back stories, performance times, warnings about competitors and past injury problems.  It makes the joy of seeing a win and the disappointment of seeing a loss all the greater.

So that’s why I’m telling you about Amir and Jack.  They’ve done a fantastic job of overcoming their problems and moving on. It hasn’t always been easy.  We’ve all been doing the equivalent of cheering them on here and we are delighted that things are turning out well for them both.  We hope you can share a bit of our delight now too.

If you've loved the Olympics and Paralympics as much as I have, you might be interested to know that our clients have been busy with a project.  They've been looking at the impact of the Olympics on homeless people in the area.  Have a look at our Olympic Voices website http://www.olympicvoices.com/ to see what they found out.   

There will be a public exhibition of this project from 14th - 28th November at Rich Mix on Bethnal Green Road. http://www.richmix.org.uk/whats-on/event/providence-rows-olympic-voices/

Does your mother know that you're out? Pam Orchard, CEO

Although we aren’t all necessarily parents, we have all been teenagers.  Almost everyone I know has had at least one time when they stayed out much too late and their mum and dad were a combination of worried and livid.

When I was growing up, there was a very unfortunate incident involving my sister and the headmaster’s daughter (aged 18).  My mum was woken up at 6am by the headmaster’s wife asking if she knew where the girls were.   They were on their way home after a particularly fine school play party.  My mum was a combination of very worried and also highly embarrassed that she hadn’t noticed my sister wasn’t there.  Outed as a poor parent by Mrs. Hitchin.  My sister had brought shame on our family.  There was a meeting…

Two weeks ago, a woman in her 70s came into Providence Row.  Her son was missing and she was looking for him.  She had been up since 7am and travelled from her home in Wales to London.  With a laptop to help her gather information, she was working her way around homelessness charities in London to see if she could find her son.

Our Local Team Manager spent some time with our visitor.  She explained that we weren’t able to tell her whether her son had come to the centre, due to our responsibilities under the Data Protection Act.  However, we could take her details and pass on a message to him and let him know she was looking for him.  The manager spent some time speaking to the mother, finding out more about how she felt, her anxiety about the wellbeing of her son and his state of mind. 

Our responsibility to maintain confidentiality for clients is sometimes a double edged sword.  There are times when, for very legitimate reasons, clients do not want to be found. There are other times, such as this, when we would like nothing more than to facilitate a reunion. 

It was interesting that, no matter how old the son was, his mother was still worried about him.  She was a concerned and motivated parent and, although we don’t know what has happened in the son’s life to cause this estrangement to happen, she desperately wanted to find him.

Situations like this remind me that whoever comes through our doors, no matter how dishevelled, unwell, or unhappy they might be, they are always somebody’s son or daughter, or a father, uncle or niece.

An estimated 250,000 people go missing in the UK each year[1] .  If someone you love is missing, or if you are not in touch with your family and would like to pass on a message, you can contact the missing people helpline freefone 116 000 or email 116000@missingpeople.org.uk

---

[1] https://www.missingpeople.org.uk/missing-people/about-the-issue/about-the-issue

Why don’t Homeless People Speed Date? Pam Orchard, CEO

The other day a client came in with a support worker from a hostel.  “I’ve come for the speed dating event” said the client.  Our reception staff were confused.  Although we offer many services, none of them are speed dating and, to be honest, never will be.  The reception staff were given the contact name of “Leila”.

Leila is extremely unlikely to run a speed dating event for anyone. Therefore, she was as confused as the reception staff when she came to see the client.  Leila explained that there was no speed dating today, nor on any day in the foreseeable future.  However, we were running an art exhibition which was open to residents of local hostels.  The client was noticeably deflated.  “I’m not interested in art – I wanted to do speed dating.  Please can you let me know if you are offering speed dating again.”

By coincidence, we had been talking about dating that very week.  When we ask clients what they want and how we can help them, generally their answer is very simple: job, a house and a partner.   I think that’s what most people want, isn’t it?  We have certainly had some success at helping out with the first two.

However, the whole issue of dating is a bit awkward to be honest.  Have you had your most healthy, happy and fulfilling relationships when you’ve been at a low ebb? On the other hand, have you also been supported through difficult times by a loving committed partner?  Have you been devastated at the ending of a relationship, maybe even moving out and staying with friends whilst you get things sorted? 

In a study commissioned by Shelter, 41% of people on the streets cited relationship breakdown as their reason for being homeless.  A further 28% were asked to leave the family home.[1] So, although we are never likely to run Speed Dating, we recognise the importance of helping our clients with their relationships.  During the year we’ll be seeking funding to develop work to help clients overcome some of the grief and sense of loss associated with relationship breakdown.  We’ll be investigating how to help clients get back in touch with relatives and children where it’s safe and appropriate.  Maybe we could even offer workshops on dating skills - you never know.

And – for the curious amongst you, Leila had attended a professional networking “speed dating” event a few weeks ago.  She met someone from the hostel where the client lived and told him about the art exhibition.  When the information about the exhibition was circulated, wires were crossed and the rest is history.

---

[1]http://england.shelter.org.uk/campaigns/why_we_campaign/tackling_homelessness/What_causes_homelessness

Over the cubicle wall (Pam Orchard, CEO)

When I was at primary school, we used to play a game of shimmying up the toilet wall in an L shape - back flat on one side, legs out straight, feet flat on the other.  The real art was to get over the other side and walk down the next.  You could lock all the cubicles from the inside, then crawl under the door of the last.  I’m very sorry to the teachers at Applecroft Primary School, Welwyn Garden City – from 1977 to 1981 that was me. 

A well documented incident in hospital dramas is one in which someone very unwell, or under the influence, is trapped behind a cubicle door and requires urgent rescue.  A few days ago we had something similar happen here at Providence Row.

We hadn’t seen Rich for nine months.  In fact we had even been phoned by a partner service asking us “did we have details of his next of kin?”  Rich had apparently been found dead sleeping on the streets.  He had a history of rough sleeping in London for about the last five years – never engaging in any service long enough to start to get the help he needed.  In a recent presentation from Alex Bax from London Pathway, we found out that the average age at death from a sample of 131 homeless patients was 40.5 years[1]. 

Imagine our surprise when he turned up at Providence Row alive and very, very drunk.  Rich asked if he could use our toilets which - of course – he could.  After about 20 minutes, one of the staff realised that he hadn’t re-emerged.  Without wishing to intrude, the staff member went into our toilets to carefully investigate whether Rich was OK and was greeted by the sound of loud snoring and a locked door.  Rich had fallen asleep in his cubicle of choice with the three pairs of trousers he was wearing still crumpled down at his feet.

I’ll spare you the technical detail of our toilet door locking system – but the only way in was over the top.  One of our more lithe and adventurous staff members climbed in from an adjacent cubicle.  He and a colleague respectfully helped an almost asleep Rich tidy himself up and make himself presentable.  He was brought back to life for the second time that day.  Eventually he left the centre, once again unable or unwilling to tell us more about how he was, where he’d been for the last nine months and why he was drinking so much.

Our experience with Rich is bitter sweet.  We were very pleased to see he was still alive, but sorry and frustrated that we weren’t able to really find out why he is still sleeping on the streets after five years.  The whole incident was sad, awful and quite dramatic, as well as quirky and at times, quite funny – it has certainly been a talking point since.   

Next time Rich comes in, we will try to engage him in our Activity Programme.  We want to know more about who he is, what went wrong for him and how we can work with him to start to make things go a bit better again.  He might find our art workshop a useful way to express himself and tell us his story in his own way. Have a look on our Facebook page for pictures of work exhibited by art workshop participants.

---

[1] Research by Hewett et al BJGP 2011; 61: 200–202.

An unexpected visitor...Pam Orchard, CEO

A very unusual incident occurred a couple of weeks ago.  A client came in with a sports bag and asked the staff to have a look inside.  It is with some trepidation that one of our project workers opened the zip, rather concerned about what she would find.

So – what was in that bag?  Well, the client had brought in a ferret. He found it in on the street, by a school in Forest Gate.  The client was from Poland and, language proving to be quite a barrier, we weren’t able to establish much more than that.  The history of that ferret and how it had presented at our service was unclear.  The ferret didn’t bite anyone and was very friendly.  Whatever the background to the ferret, it needed a meal, a drink, a poo and a wash.  We were able to help with the first three. We phoned the RSPCA, who came to collect the ferret, so that they could provide  more specialist care and a temporary home.  We logged this outcome as “supported reconnection” on our monitoring sheet.

Although only a ferret, I am delighted to see that the staff treated it with kindness and respect.  I am also very glad that it was taken away after two hours.  Looking after animals is not really our area of expertise.  Obviously we are more concerned about people – particularly homeless ones.

Interesting things happen every day at Providence Row.  What really touched me about this story was that, although homeless and in need of help, that client took the time and trouble to catch that ferret.  He took the necessary action to ensure it was cared for.  I have been wondering why he did that.  Was it a love of animals?  Was it because he wanted the ferret to be reunited with its owner?  Did he think the people of Forest Gate needed to be saved from the terror of a stray ferret?  Whatever the reason, that client acted extremely responsibly, despite his own difficult circumstances.  Would I have done the same?

All of our clients have a story to tell about why they need help from a homelessness charity.  The stories are sometimes scary and traumatic, others are just very, very sad.  We also hear about the mistakes people have made and how they have hurt themselves and those around them.  Some people only tell us a piece of the story and it can take a while to assemble a more complete picture.  Some people don’t tell us very much at all (much like the ferret).

Having said that, I think it’s important to emphasise that people aren’t like ferrets.  We need to offer much more than a meal, basic washing and toilet facilities to the people that come to our door. Our job is to help people to deal with the underlying causes of their homelessness as well as their immediate needs.  That’s why, over the coming year, we will be focusing a lot of attention on our mental health and substance misuse services, as well as our skills and learning activities.  Find out more about how our work with some of society’s most vulnerable people is developing by looking at our website www.providencerow.org.uk, following us on Twitter and liking us on Facebook.