Huge Move is a self-help group for formerly street homeless people who work together to address the social exclusion they have experienced, and to support other formerly homeless people make the transition from the streets to fully integrated members of their local community. Huge Move creates a social network to combat the isolation and loneliness that can lead to resettled people abandoning their accommodation and returning to the streets. It helps people to develop their independent living skills and facilitates training and employment opportunities. It aims to foster individual development and confidence and to empower people to make their views heard and acted upon.
The grant of £3000 from the London Housing Foundation was awarded to fund social activities and to provide refreshments at a range of events including workshops, speakers and training. Up to this point, Huge Move had been struggling to involve its membership in its weekly meetings and campaigning activities. The introduction of some more social and light-hearted activities was directed at increasing the group's membership through offering a variety of ways in which people could become involved, without necessarily expecting them to make a great time commitment to the group.
Since receiving the grant, we have been able to provide lunch at the weekly Huge Move meetings. We have held workshops on the following themes - training and employment, substance use, depression, self-esteem, and drama. We have also had visiting speakers, including Groundswell, Cardboard Citizens, Meaningful Activities Workers, the User Involvement and 'It's your Move' workers from HSA, the Moving In / Moving On (TR's painting and decorating scheme) worker and Crisis at Christmas. A tutor from the City Lit has been attending the weekly Huge Move meetings to give informal IT training to group members. The group have arranged cinema trips, ten-pin bowling, outings to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, Hampton Court, the London Dungeon, Madame Tussauds, concerts at the Royal Festival Hall, and the All Party Parliamentary Group at the House of Commons. We also held an extremely successful Christmas Party for Huge Move members and TST clients.
The expansion of our activities to include more variety and a range of social events has proved extremely popular and has greatly increased the active membership of Huge Move. We regularly have an attendance of about a dozen members at the weekly meetings. However, there have been wide disparities in the level of involvement that members have wanted within the group. While some service users have taken an active role in organising activities, others have been very passive. Although this widens the appeal of the group, it does conflict with its original aims to be user-led. These issues are currently included in discussions at the meetings. We have also found that visits accompanied by staff have been more popular and that there have been problems around financial accountability and around the negotiation of individual preferences on unaccompanied visits. These issues are now regular agenda items at our meetings, as we hope that working through them rather than letting staff take the lead will foster greater independence among Huge Move members.
Fred Agbah or Jo-anne Cardin
Meaningful Occupation
Thames Reach
Elmfield House
5 Stockwell Mews
London SW9 9GX
tel: 020 7737 7752
http://www.thamesreach.org.uk/
