Homelessness

The cycle of homelessness stops when we skill people to become independent. We skill individuals to deal with the root cause of homelessness through educating, challenging, and supporting them to make better lifestyle choices

Homelessness is a complex problem in society and people who become homeless are perceived to have multiple and complex needs, often (but not always) having had difficult earlier lives. The effects of homelessness on individuals means they can easily become lost or slip through the nets of support and fall into a cycle of homelessness driven by inequalities in society.

To break this cycle we need to skill individuals to deal with the root cause of homelessness through educating, challenging, and supporting them to address their barriers and hold higher expectations of themselves.

For the past 5 years, Intuitive Thinking Skills have worked with homeless people to deliver education and skills through accredited programmes aimed at tackling inequalities and changing attitudes towards health, wellbeing, and communities. We have successfully proved our approach improves outcomes for people who are in different stages of homelessness, from those living in temporary accommodation or sofa surfing, through to rough sleepers.

Funded by the Westminster Rough Sleepers commissioning Team, we have fine-tuned our Homelessness Provisions to speak to the needs of both our Partners and most importantly our learners.

We recognise that often drugs and alcohol, mental health, debt, gambling, and poverty are triggers for homelessness and we take a holistic approach to address these root causes rather than dealing with the effects.

Through credible tools and a peer-delivered programme, we are able to look at key issues, improve self-esteem, cognitive skill-sets and also help individuals engaged transfer their survival skills into legitimate activities including move on and secured tenancies, further learning, volunteering, work and/or returning home. By doing this we are breaking the cycle of homelessness, drugs, alcohol, crime, neighbourhood problems, health and wellbeing, and worklessness.

Our unique approach focuses on developing skills and personal responsibility rather than adding further layers of support. Our experience tells us that if you change one person’s life you affect families, peers, communities, victims of crime, and statutory services.

We deliver programmes that bring additional skills and support using cutting edge interventions including neuroscience, cognitive tools, communication and transferable skills as well as understanding consequences to individuals, their family and communities; giving people skills to live independently, able to refocus skills and contribute to their communities.

Our Courses speak to the needs of homeless people

We recruit and train our Delivery Staff from our learners, meaning they themselves have experienced transformative change using the skills we teach. The power of peer to peer education lies in both the demonstration of “we’ve been there and done that” and also the ability to communicate and affect change with credibility.

Westminster Rough Sleepers Abstinence Based Courses delivered in 2018

Intuitive Thinking Skills monitor both self-reported outcomes which are collected once people graduate, around 10 weeks after course completion, and agency validated outcomes which are collated at regular intervals.

We are able to be flexible in the design and implementation of our services to ensure they support the improvement and achievement of outcomes of our Partners, Commissioners, and most importantly meet the needs of the learners. Read more about our Bespoke and Tailored Services Here.