Ben's Outreach Team
Spotlight on our Outreach service!
We so frequently talk about the Day Centre and the amazing service staff provide. However, did you know we also have an Outreach team? Vern and Alex are out and about in Sheffield city centre 5 days a week. You may spot them wearing their orange lanyards.
The Outreach team are integral to our service. Often people who visit us do not want to come on their own volition. The Outreach team make continuous interactions with people to build rapport and relationships and trust. People are often distrustful organisations claiming to ‘help’ and may need some encouragement to come up to the Centre. Often it is the support of others who come here regularly along with a familiar face that convinces them to come.
There are some people who may never come - however, we can provide a mini service to them directly where they are, providing them with food, water, hot drinks and small essentials (socks and boxers are the main ones!) They can also signpost an individual to support services such as housing, medical and rehabilitation services as well as giving them a freephone number to contact if they need support, and the addresses of Day Centres. And then there are people who feel they cannot interact, street drinking and/or sleeping rough are entrenched in their lives. For them, we still continuously check in in the hope that one day they may change their minds and let us be there for them.
Our Outreach team doesn’t work alone and there is a cohesive multi-organisational approach to Outreach here in Sheffield. Framework are usually the first out and about - checking on people at the crack of dawn (and in winter even before!) to see if everyone who has slept out is alright, needs a warming drink or support services. Our Outreach team take the day shift along with Sheffield City Council representatives and PCSOs. Then as evening sets in The Sunday Centre, Unity Outreach, Sheffield Street Kitchen, St Matthew's Church, Street Pastors and Carver Street Parish Nurses, Swwop Ltd and Chocolate Box head out to various different places on various days to support people in need.
Want to help our Outreach team? They are greatly in need of small individually wrapped snacks, sweets and chocolates they can hand out to clients. New men’s socks and boxers are also greatly needed. You can shop bulk suitable items and have them shipped directly to us through Give Today: Ben‘s Centre - Give Today