Development Plan 2007-2011

1. Introduction

For nearly 40 years Cambridge Cyrenians have been providing accommodation and support to many of the city's homeless. Present services provide a range of accommodation for 62 homeless men and women, including two short-stay houses, a Mental Health Outreach Team, which offers a citywide service for those who are homeless and mentally ill, and specialist support for older homeless people.

At a meeting in June 2007 Staff and Council Members of Cambridge Cyrenians began the process of reviewing the organisation's priorities for the future. This meeting highlighted a wide range of areas and issues to be addressed if Cambridge Cyrenians are to meet the needs of local homeless men and women over the next five years and beyond.

This document is the result of the review process that followed the June meeting. The views of service users, the known future plans of the other local homeless agencies, plus local and national policy and strategy have been taken into account.

This Development Plan will be subject to a formal review in 2009-10 and will be monitored meanwhile by the Development Sub-group.

2. Summary of key points

Many of our major goals from the previous plan have been achieved. These include:

• the opening of the Controlled Drinking Project in 2006

• new Move-on accommodation

• new funding secured for projects and

• a satisfactory Supporting People review.

But in the short and medium term we will need to respond to external changes such as:

• Cambridge City Council's Reconnections Policy

• smokefree legislation

• Choice Based Lettings and

• Service tendering.

At the same time Cambridge Cyrenians is setting out its own priorities. These include:

• developing the services provided by the Mental Health Outreach Team

• tendering for other services

• rent optimisation and

• Staff and Trustee development.

Cambridge Cyrenians will also commit itself during the duration of this new Development Plan to:

• the continued use of full-time volunteers

• considering how best we can secure follow-on funding for any posts whose grants will expire during the course of this Plan

• ensure that service users continue to play an active role in any significant decisions that affect our services

• building and maintaining relationships with current and possible funders

• communicating our aims and objectives and work in partnership with other relevant organisations.

Achievements of the 2004-09 plan

3.1 Controlled Drinking Project

Cambridge Cyrenian's previous Development Plan set out ambitious goals for the organisation, including the opening of new accommodation for heavy drinkers. Attempts to secure a suitable building had been on-going since 1998 and caused significant distraction from addressing other items in the Plan. But a site and the funding were secured and the project, for six residents, opened in September 2006. The scheme is a significant contribution to our, and the City Council's own, strategy for single homeless.

3.2 Move-on accommodation

In April 2006 we opened a new four bed project providing additional move-on accommodation.

3.3 Supporting People Review

Supporting People completed its review of our services and in January 2007 issued us with a certificate of accreditation and a five year steady state contract. This is much longer than achieved by other agencies.

3.4 Follow on funding

We secured continued funding for our Older Homeless Project to 2010. This project has helped to raise the profile and support needs of older homeless men and women at a local and national level.

3.5 Meaningful activity

We have also been able in 2007 to start a new project providing meaningful activity for older clients with two years funding from Help the Aged. The project is a Tree Nursery set up with the encouragement of Cambridgeshire Preservation Society.

4. Responding to external changes

During the life of this Plan there will be some significant changes that are required by external partners, funders or legislation. Cambridge Cyrenians must be prepared to react to these to ensure that service users are not disadvantaged as and when the changes are introduced.

These include:

4.1 Cambridge City Council's Reconnections Policy

5. Planning ahead

Whilst Cambridge Cyrenians must respond to the outside demands of others, the June meeting took the opportunity to review its own priorities for the future and to assess the direction of the organisation in response to the needs it has identified.

These include:

5.1 Mental Health Team (MHT)

The team provides an essential service city wide to all those agencies working with homeless people, those who sleep rough, or who are vulnerable to homelessness. We believe it fits in well with our overall work in addition to making a very positive contribution to the support of all homeless people in and around Cambridge. But we wish to go further than simply maintaining the existing service and there are two areas which we would like to explore and possibly develop over the life of this plan.

5.1.1 Out of area support

Anecdotal evidence suggests that individuals who might be placed in tenancies outside the City boundary are not being referred because there is no agency to offer a package of support to those who move out of area. At present the numbers appear to be small, but we will keep this under review, because if the numbers increase, then there may be a case to be made to expand our service to support such individuals.

5.1.2 Supporting clients of the Complex Case Service

Following a very successful part-time secondment of a team member to the Complex Case Service (CCS) based at Fulbourn, the CCS has approached Cyrenians to see if we would consider a range of options for supporting mutual clients. These could range from simply assisting clients to engage with the CCS to providing an accommodation based service for up to 10 individuals who would receive intensive support from CCS. At this stage discussions are progressing on the most appropriate model.

5.2 Move-on

Bed blocking is still a major problem for us as short-stay beds are occupied by individuals who no longer need such intensive support. For some of these who aren't going to be offered, or aren't yet ready for their own tenancy, we have, in the past few years, been able to offer accommodation with much lower support. We will consider expanding in this direction provided that there is adequate funding and support available.

5.3 Replacement Funding

During the life of this Plan the current Big Lottery funding of the Older Persons Project Worker's post will come to an end. This post has proved to be extremely effective in assisting older clients to move on to greater independence and an improved quality of life. Before the current funding comes to an end, it will be important that we set about securing long-term funding. This might mean a possible bid to Supporting People.

5.4 Administration Support

The growth of services has put some strain on the central administrative support in the organisation. A new ledger system was installed in 2006 and aspects of it are still being developed. The completion of this project is a high priority as it will provide management information more readily than has previously been possible and free up time for other work.

5.5 Tendering

Whilst Cambridge Cyrenians has concerns about the process of putting SP funded services out to tender, the Council of Management have decided that, as an organisation, we need to keep our options open. If a current or new service comes up for tender, which fits with our existing services, then we should consider bidding. Not considering this option and relying on successfully defending our current services against other bidders would risk the collapse of the organisation and the distinctive nature of our services.

5.6 Rent optimisation

Cambridge Cyrenians has begun a process, with the help of an external agency, of optimising the rental income from all of our current accommodation. Should this be successful it would mean a move away from short term funding bids for major repairs, enabling long-term planning, with less reliance on voluntary and grant aided support. It would give us the ability to set a budget on the basis of what it costs to provide a good quality service, rather than setting a budget on the basis of what we hope our income might be. The current budget relies upon £40,000 of grant income, which needs to be secured each year. The optimisation would also allow us to provide the administration support that has not been possible due to cutbacks.

At the same time Cambridge Cyrenians has always been conscious of the fact that high rents disadvantage working residents. In addition, the rents in our short-term houses present a barrier to homeless people under the age of 25 because we provide full-board, which is ineligible for housing benefit. Consequently under 25's, (who receive £10 per week less in benefits than those over 25) have little disposable income, once they have paid their rent.

Having considered the options and discussed them with residents, Cambridge Cyrenians is of the opinion that we should continue to provide full board in our short-stay houses.

A system of providing bursary funds may be needed in order to keep rents affordable for young people and those who are working. This will be essential with rent optimisation, but may be needed in any case.

5.7 40th Anniversary

The group that become Cambridge Cyrenians were providing services for the homeless in Cambridge from October 1965, but the organisation wasn't registered until October 1970. We plan to mark our 40th Anniversary October 2010 with a small celebration and a possible book on our history.

Cambridge Cyrenians is well known amongst homeless agencies and with the local authority, but it's profile with the general public has diminished over the years. We may decide to utilise this event to raise the public profile of organization.

5.8 Staff development

Staff development is important if we wish to provide a productive and effective service and to retain the experienced and capable staff team that we currently have. This means going beyond simple training and support, but also identifying and highlighting positive outcomes, exchanges and sharing successes.

5.9 Trustee development

Training attended by all Trustees in 2006 showed that the organisation has a knowledgeable and experienced committee

To build on this base the Committee will carry out a regular skills gap review and aims to recruit one new trustee annually.

Trustees also plan to improve trustee and staff interaction with the introduction of appropriate combined activities.

5.10 Full-time Volunteers

Historically Cambridge Cyrenians has been reliant on part-time and full-time volunteers to provide its services. In the early years this was very heavy but more recently the reliance on volunteers has reduced. It has always been difficult to recruit enough suitable volunteers and it has also become necessary to employ experienced or qualified staff to provide continuity and specific skills in some positions. We currently employ fourteen staff and recruit six full-time volunteers at any one time.

The volunteers live and work alongside the residents of our short- and long-stay houses. The volunteers are supported in the day to day running of the houses by the paid staff.

Volunteers stay on average six to twelve months, which, we believe, helps them to gain a good understanding of the impact of homelessness on people's lives, over and above the lack of a home. It also provides valuable work experience for those wishing to go on to a career in the caring professions, which can be seen in the number of volunteers who go on to a related job immediately on leaving Cambridge Cyrenians. Of the 10 volunteers who left during 2006/07, 7 went on to work for another homeless agency and one became a care assistant. The others had no immediate plans when they left. Currently ex-Cyrenian volunteers are working for Supporting People, Cambridge City Council, The Street Outreach Team, Stonham and English Churches, to name but a few.

Use of full-time volunteers may be perceived as old fashioned by some external agencies, but the numbers who go on to secure full-time posts with similar agencies go to show how much their experience is valued by potential employers.

Whilst it is good to see so many of our full-time volunteers go on to work in the sector, we also recognise the need to ensure that, whilst they are with us, the volunteers need to be safe, well trained and well supported.

In addition to their internal training, the full-time volunteers have been able to attend a range of external training courses.

Cambridge Cyrenians also plan to carry out a review of the role and responsibility of the volunteers to ensure that their role still meets the needs and demands of the current and future environment.

Cambridge Cyrenians are committed to the continued use of full-time volunteers.

5.11 Part-time volunteers

We have also retained the assistance of other, occasional volunteers who help with administration, fundraising and now in greater numbers within the Controlled Drinking Project and Tree Nursery where they have proved invaluable in supporting staff and service users in various activities. We believe that volunteers provide valuable assistance and will continue to use them where appropriate.