Blue Sky Development and Regeneration, Reprieve, Broadway and Cricklewood Homeless Concern have been shortlisted in the social care, welfare and religion category of the Charity Awards 2010.

Blue Sky Development and Regeneration

Reducing reoffending through employment

Blue Sky has a distinctive USP – to work there you need a criminal record.

Established as a social enterprise offering a “proper job with a proper company”, it aimed to win commercial work against
private sector competition. Starting with two grounds maintenance contracts it has since diversified into areas such as recycling.

Although having a job has the greatest single impact on reducing re-offending, three-quarters of all prisoners are released to unemployment. The Blue Sky model provides a blueprint for how local authority commissioning can be used to generate social benefit at no extra cost.

Blue Sky estimates that it is creating jobs at a net cost of £4,000 per head, when the cost to society of each ex-offender who re-offends is upward of £250,000.

Praised by the judges as “very impressive” Blue Sky founder and chief executive Mick May summarises its success with some compelling statistics. “Over the five years since it was set up, we have employed nearly 300 ex-offenders – that’s greater than the entire inmate population of some of Britain’s prisons. And of these, less than 15 per cent have re-offended, a quarter of the national average.”

Reprieve

Providing a new start for released prisoners

Reprieve is a legal action charityfounded by human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, which uses the law to enforce human rights for prisoners.

It has long been at the forefront of the battle to close the illegal prison in Guantánamo Bay, which has housed nearly 800 prisoners since January 2002. Reprieve has represented more than 80 of these, of which over 50 are now free. But it became clear that securing release did not mean the end of difficulties for the men. They faced challenges of trauma, reintegration and stigma. Therefore Reprieve sought UN funding for the Life After Guantánamo support (LAG) project.

As well as working to get cleared prisoners released from Guantánamo to Europe, LAG has had a significant impact on the lives of those released.

Since August 2009, 44 men have been referred to the LAG team. Most have been released from Guantánamo, and the LAG team has been directly involved in facilitating a range of medical, legal, social and financial support.

Laura Stebbing, resource development manager, says: “After suffering years of abuse and unlawful imprisonment, LAG has helped to give these men a new start in life.”

Broadway

Moving homeless people into private rented accommodation

Broadway helps vulnerable people obtain and stay in accommodation and to live successful, independent lives.

The private rented sector is increasingly seen as a solution to the shortage of social housing for single homeless people. This shortage places more pressure on short-stay
accommodation, reducing the capacity to accommodate other needy people.

Research demonstrated that there was a sizeable group of formerly homeless people with low support needs. Recognising that this was a costly use of public funds, Broadway launched Real Lettings in October 2005. Private landlords with one-bed and studio properties can access
Broadway’s property management experience and their properties are then used to re-house single people that have experienced homelessness.

Susan Fallis, assistant director of services, says that Real Lettings currently houses 156 people in the private rented sector and aims to increase this to 500 within three years. “We have successfully challenged the views of clients, referring agents and landlords, making the private rented sector a positive and attractive move-on option,” she said.

Some 93 per cent of Real Lettings tenants have sustained or had positive moves from their tenancies.

Cricklewood Homeless Concern

Putting homelessness at the heart of the community

CHC works proactively with the local north London community to enable homeless people to positively change their lives, through the delivery of specialist services in a community resource centre setting.

It has challenged the view that homeless people are a group apart, dependent and lacking capacity to improve their situation. By providing expertise and resources while local people actively work towards creating a more inclusive and healthier place to live, CHC has trebled outcomes as a result of a new approach to supporting vulnerable people.

Key elements of this include personal responsibility, full engagement with services, customers taking the lead in their recovery and staff committed to high-quality customer service, all within a culture of mutual respect and expectation of success.

As a result, CHC has successfully housed 221 people, while 78 have been linked to mental health services and 109 have been referred to and accessed GP services.