Solving Homelessness & Achieving Independence
Trustees’ Annual Report for the Year Ended 31st March 2023
Table of Contents
Emerging Stronger Than Before
Chief Executive's Statement
Towards the end of this year, I sat in a team meeting listening to Support Workers seek advice from one another on how to best provide support to clients with increasingly complex needs.
I couldn't help but feel bowled over by the intensity and complexity of each case and how well-equipped each team member was to meet their clients' significant needs. Reflecting on what I'd heard, it struck me that every day, we stand by our mission to work alongside people to overcome life’s challenges. Our interventions truly are changing each of our clients’ lives for the better. For that, I have nothing but gratitude for our staff and volunteers - and our clients too - for putting their trust in us as we help them pave the way to a brighter future.
At one point, however, this brighter future felt like a distant hope. With the country stifled by austerity and the third sector severely impacted, it would have been easy to believe that growth was impossible. But instead, we sought to be a voice of hope and change. With many of our clients at a crisis point with their mental health, we recognised that people needed our support now more than ever - so we pushed forward. We began to deliver more services, we secured additional bed spaces, and we continued to expand our reach. This growth helped us to receive recognition for our vital work, with our Step Down Housing Service nominated for a Homeless Link Excellence Award. I'm also incredibly grateful that we, alongside our partners Oxfordshire Homeless Movement (OHM), Aspire, Edge Housing and Asylum Welcome, received enough philanthropic support to continue our service that helps those with no recourse to public funds – resulting in far higher numbers having their asylum claims granted.
"This year, our ongoing pursuit of safely and sustainably housing those in our community saw us provide crucial support to over 5,000 people."
This year, our ongoing pursuit of safely and sustainably housing those in our community saw us provide crucial support for over 5,000 people, and it's this perseverance that will help us to continue to evolve in the coming years. I'm incredibly passionate about giving our clients a voice by directly involving them in shaping our work, and one way we were able to do that was by launching our Peer Mentoring Initiative - where former clients use their lived experience to support people going through issues they’ve recently overcome. It's a fantastic initiative, and I'm looking forward to seeing how we can develop it further by broadening it out across the other communities we work in.
In the aftermath of the pandemic, we recognised that the increasing complexity of our clients' needs placed additional strain on our teams, so we made an overt commitment to developing a staff well-being policy. We created additional opportunities to listen to their needs, including collaborating with Best Companies to deliver our first staff engagement survey. The results from this have been instrumental in identifying core areas of focus for us to develop. Based on the responses, Best Companies also named Connection Support as one of the top 25 charities to work for in the UK – a fantastic achievement that I'm thrilled to share.
I'm grateful to the Board for their ongoing commitment and support, and I feel truly privileged to lead this organisation into next year. I have no doubt that there will be challenges, but if this year is anything to go by, we'll emerge stronger than before.
Emerging Stronger Than Before
Chair of the Trustee Board’s Statement
As a charity, we are committed to working diligently to alleviate the crises our clients face.
Throughout the year, we continued our work across homelessness and housing support, mental health, family support, young people, and refugee resettlement.
Since joining the Board of Trustees in 2018, I have seen how austerity measures and times of economic uncertainty can exacerbate the inequalities our clients face, and this past financial year has been no different. The impact of both the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis had a profound effect on our clients, but the time spent last financial year revisiting our strategic priorities and developing new service models meant we were well-equipped to handle the increase in complexities. This year, we significantly invested in our infrastructure and people development, which enabled us to persevere through the economic difficulties and continue to provide quality support to those in need. We recruited an Estates team to manage our supported accommodation, invested in our IT systems to help reduce inefficiencies, and developed our fundraising to enable us to generate greater levels of welfare funding. We also provided a one-off payment to all staff members to assist them during the cost-of-living crisis.
Despite the challenging economic landscape, we continued to deliver our 32 primary services across the three localities we serve, and we saw our income grow by 14%. We continued to foster effective partnerships by collaborating with government agencies, local authorities, trusts, and other charities, and we continued to diversify our income sources allowing us to meet the growing needs of our communities.
"Despite the challenging economic landscape, we continued to deliver our 32 primary services across the three localities we serve, and we saw our income grow by 14%."
Over the past 12 months, we have seen demand for our services increase and I am humbled by the perseverance of those involved in ensuring support was available when people needed it. I want to take this opportunity to thank James Arnold for his time as Chair of the Trustee Board, and to my colleagues on the Board for entrusting me to take over the mantle since James’ retirement as Chair in September 2023. I would also like to thank Chris Keating, Chief Executive Officer, for his continued commitment to leading Connection Support through this challenging time, as well as all the staff and volunteers for their dedication to supporting our clients.
Finally, I want to thank our supporters and donors. Their generosity is nothing short of incredible and it has allowed us to continue changing the lives of the people we support.
Helping to overcome life's challenges
About Us
We're experts in homelessness and housing support – it is where we began in 1995. But as the challenges our clients face evolve, so do we. Now, we're specialists at providing support across homelessness and housing, mental health, family support, young peoples’ support, and refugee resettlement.
Our mission is to work alongside people to help them overcome life's challenges, supporting everyone in our society to become safely and sustainably housed and live as independently as possible. To do this, we provide services across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes through approximately 200 staff and 150 volunteers. We use a person-centred, trauma-informed, strengths-based approach to empower our clients to define their goals, take positive steps forward and achieve greater independence.
"Low mental health has become a reoccurring theme amongst our clients in the wake of the pandemic."
Poor mental health has become a significant theme across our client base in the wake of the pandemic and, as the cost-of-living crisis continues, we have seen their needs become increasingly more complex. As such, addressing mental health needs now underpins all our work and is embedded throughout all our services.
To continue to provide quality support that meets the ever-growing needs of our society, we work collaboratively with other organisations to ensure that our interventions make a meaningful and sustainable difference in peoples’ lives.
An overview of our X main services can be found in the Appendix on page X.
Testimonial
Client, Oxford Mental Health Support Service
If it were not for my Support Worker, I would not be alive today...
The mental pain and torture I endured, and my inability to function, think and organise my life, meant I truly wanted to die. I planned it; I attempted it.
But thanks to my Support Worker, I am here today. While I still have some way to go to get my life back and live independently, I am so much closer to that dream.
I’ve been supported with so much: dealing with correspondence, resolving problems, and coming up with solutions when I couldn’t see a way out. The impact my Support Worker has had on my life is frankly immeasurable. There really are no words to express my gratitude for her support.
Working with over 20 partners
Our Year in Numbers
Collaborating for Impact
Our Partnerships
Over the course of the year, we continued to work in partnership with other organisations, services, and local authorities to provide innovative, wrap-around support for our clients across the three localities we work in.
Across Oxfordshire, we continued to work in collaboration with A2 Dominion, Aspire, Elmore Community Services, Homeless Oxfordshire and St Mungo’s, as well as the Lived Experience Advisory Forum (LEAF) and Oxfordshire County, City and District Councils to form the Oxfordshire Homelessness Alliance (OHA). OHA was born from a feasibility study to better understand how a housing-led approach could be applied to tackle homelessness in Oxfordshire. As part of OHA, we work collaboratively with other partner organisations to pave new ways to prevent and resolve homelessness across the county. We also form part of the Oxfordshire Mental Health Partnership, alongside the Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, Response, Restore, Oxfordshire Mind and Elmore Community Services to provide intensive mental health support to those in need. Across the county, we continued our collaboration with Oxfordshire Homeless Movement (OHM), Aspire, Edge Housing and Asylum Welcome to deliver our service which offers support and guidance to those with no recourse to public funds.
In Buckinghamshire, we worked alongside The Oasis Partnership and Inclusion, an NHS organisation, to deliver the ORB project. This service, commissioned by Buckinghamshire Council, was designed to support individuals impacted by drug and alcohol misuse, including assistance with treatment and recovery. Throughout the year, we continued to work alongside Buckinghamshire Mind, Citizens Advice Bucks, The Oasis Partnership and Adult Mental Health Teams to deliver SafeHaven+ - a service which specialises in providing alternative support to help clients avoid crises and prevent admission to hospital. We also formed part of the Bucks Rough Sleeper Initiative. Led by Buckinghamshire Council and funded by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, this collaboration of charities and services work together to provide localised support for rough sleepers.
Across Milton Keynes, we continued to lower hospital admissions through our ongoing work with Adult Mental Health Teams and the Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust. Through this partnership, we have been able to identify clients at risk of a mental health crisis and provide them with support to prevent admission to an acute mental health ward.
We also have strong links with the Thames Valley Alliance for our work with ex-offenders and this year, following the results of a recent independent review of the criminal justice system in Thames Valley, we began delivering ‘Restart Thames Valley’, alongside Aspire Oxfordshire, Browns Community Services, Parents And Children Together (PACT) and Thames Valley Partnership. The service aims to increase the chances of those leaving prison to lead a successful life with the proper support.
Poor mental health has become a significant theme across our client base in the wake of the pandemic and, as the cost-of-living crisis continues, we have seen their needs become increasingly more complex. As such, addressing mental health needs now underpins all our work and is embedded throughout all our services.
To continue to provide quality support that meets the ever-growing needs of our society, we work collaboratively with other organisations to ensure that our interventions make a meaningful and sustainable difference in peoples’ lives.
A charity that promotes social justice
Our Commitment to Equality, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
We are a charity that promotes social justice. We seek to ensure that the people we work alongside and our team of staff and volunteers have a voice, are included, valued, have equitable access to our roles and services, and have equal opportunities to achieve. We strive to do this through our values of empowerment, collaboration, compassion and by taking a personalised approach in all aspects of our work.
"The results of the review have clearly shown that Connection Support places EDI at its core and is looking both internally and externally at ways in which it can improve and build upon its already inclusive culture." Berkeley Wilde, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, The Diversity Trust CIC
Last year, the Board of Trustees and leadership team made an explicit commitment to progress equality, diversity, equity and inclusion (EDEI) at Connection Support, resulting in the implementation of a thorough action plan which included the rollout of Everyday Inclusion and Unconscious Bias training to all staff. This year, we continued to progress our commitment to EDEI by working collaboratively with The Diversity Trust CIC. The Diversity Trust helped us to review our working practices, policies, and organisational culture and identify priorities going forward. They facilitated an organisation-wide, anonymous survey and conducted focus groups and interviews to produce a detailed report which outlined key learnings, reflections, and recommendations.
One such recommendation was to develop EDEI champion roles. These roles will help to steer our work, promote positive practices, and hold the organisation accountable for actions on our newly created EDEI development plan. We look forward to implementing these roles in the next financial year.
A client involvement and volunteering strategy
Client Involvement and Volunteering
Last year, the Board of Trustees and leadership team underlined its commitment to give our clients a voice by involving them directly in the shaping of our work. One of our organisational values is to empower our clients by focussing on their individual skills and knowledge; involving clients in decisions about how we work is a natural extension of this.
This year, we began to embed our client involvement and volunteering strategy across the organisation. We successfully implemented the first phase by progressing our client involvement champion roles. The purpose of these roles is to embed client involvement effectively within the organisation and to empower colleagues to contribute to the initiative. We also successfully launched our Peer Mentoring Initiative in Milton Keynes. Four former clients participated in training sessions to become Peer Mentors, using their lived experience to support current clients. Looking ahead, learnings from launching this initiative, paired with both our clients' and peer mentors' experience, will inform the expansion of this initiative across the other geographical areas we work in.
"The survey results showed that 90% of respondents would recommend volunteering with Connection Support to a friend, and 90% said they felt valued at Connection Support."
The Volunteer Coordinator team worked to strengthen our processes around volunteering. This was done so we could ensure that the people volunteering with us have a positive experience of doing so.
We surveyed our volunteers to better understand what we were doing well and what we could do differently.
The results showed that 90% of respondents would recommend volunteering with us to a friend, and 90% said they felt valued by Connection Support. Overall, these results are incredibly positive, but they highlight an opportunity for us to develop our strategy further to ensure those engaging with us have an increasingly positive experience.
Our Work
Homelessness and Housing
Our origins are in homelessness and housing, and we've continued to help tackle the issue since we began providing floating support in Oxfordshire in 1995. Today, our work in this area extends across Buckinghamshire, Milton Keynes and Oxfordshire, with half of our services focussed on solving the issue.
We are proud to still deliver this original service, now known as our Housing Support Service. By developing tailored support plans that are unique to our clients' needs, our Support Workers provide help and guidance that enable our clients to maintain their tenancies. Our dedicated staff team have over 90 years of experience between them, and this combined expertise helped them successfully navigate their way through a reduction in funding this financial year, without seeing a dip in the quality of service that we are known for. Despite the additional pressures felt from this reduction, we successfully supported close to 400 households in avoiding homelessness in over 97% of cases.
We continued to identify rough sleepers across the different Oxfordshire districts through our Outreach service and we successfully supported 118 clients. At the start of the financial year, these services became part of the Oxfordshire Homelessness Alliance (OHA).
Other housing-led approaches include the Housing First model, an evidence-based approach that provides a home first, followed by personalised support to enable individuals with a history of entrenched or repeat homelessness to begin their recovery. It supports those with the highest and most complex needs, and over the course of the year, our Milton Keynes service, which is the fourth largest Housing First service in the country and the largest outside of Government pilots, was able to support 30 new clients.
By working collaboratively with Milton Keynes City Council's rent team to establish better methods of communication, we have been able to help most of our Housing First clients get out of debt or put payment plans in place to reduce their debt. We ran our Next Steps Accommodation service across Milton Keynes too, providing placements for people with lower-level support needs who were previously homeless. This year, the service put provisions in place to work with 32 new clients.
Our Adult Homeless Pathway service supported clients across Oxfordshire by providing 83 rooms in shared accommodation throughout Oxford, Witney, and Banbury. As part of our commitment to delivering person-centred support, we identified several clients who had come to us in 2020 as part of the COVID-19 influx, and, as a result of their increasing complex needs, we adapted our service to support them for longer than usual. By the end of the financial year, we successfully helped 29 people move on from the pathway, complete with 12 weeks of resettlement support to help their transition to independence.
"Step Down Housing is performing well against national benchmarks for reducing A&E attendances and emergency admissions." Kings College London
Our Step Down Housing service prevents homelessness by providing short-term housing for vulnerable patients who are medically ready to be discharged from hospitals in Oxfordshire, but lack suitable accommodation to continue their recovery.
Without this service, patients would remain in hospital beds unnecessarily or potentially be forced into rough sleeping. We place Embedded Housing Workers (EHWs) in all Oxfordshire hospitals not only to upskill medical staff and social workers on the complexities of housing these patients, but to provide direct support to patients in this situation.
After the pandemic, the need for this service grew - so much so that we successfully secured funding to increase our provision by four additional beds. Through hard work and dedication, the staff team were able to source, secure and furnish a new house within a matter of weeks, enabling them to welcome two guests straight away - guests who otherwise would have been homeless upon their discharge from hospital.
The additional beds were filled within days of opening the new house, highlighting the evident need for the extra capacity. The importance of this service was also recognised when we were successfully shortlisted for the Homeless Link Excellence Awards 2022 in the 'Prevention into Action' category. This particular award celebrated services committed to preventing homelessness (or repeated periods of rough sleeping) from happening.
As part of the Rough Sleeper Initiative in Buckinghamshire, we support former rough sleepers, providing them with life skills so they can live independently in their own rented home. Through wrap-around tenancy sustainment support, alongside help with mental health, budgeting, and general daily living, we empowered 110 clients to move on from this service, and we had a 100% tenancy sustainment rate. Our Rough Sleeper Outreach team continued to locate and verify rough sleepers across the county; 97 of whom found permanent housing after being accommodated in our emergency beds whilst accessing our intensive support.
"The Support Worker's emotional intelligence in the situation was absolutely brilliant, and she really made a difference... I [the researcher] walked away from the legal visit incredibly impressed with the sincerity and tactfulness of today's conversation -- the balance between professionalism and empathy was carefully employed and likely helped the client more than she even realises." Researcher, University of Oxford
Following the results of a recent independent review of the criminal justice system in Thames Valley, several learnings and recommendations were made by the Police & Crime Commissioner to reduce reoffending. One of which was the introduction of a pilot project, ‘Restart Thames Valley’ – initially a year-long programme aiming to work with more than 350 offenders leaving Bullingdon Prison in Oxfordshire and Bronzefield Prison in Surrey. This year, in partnership with Aspire Oxfordshire, Browns Community Services, Parents And Children Together (PACT) and Thames Valley Partnership, we began delivering the service to help those leaving prison build successful lives. The service supports clients for up to six months before and up to six months after release to help prevent reoffending and increase the chance of successfully reintegrating into society. By engaging with clients early on and before their release, we were able to help them achieve a better outcome upon their release, and we successfully supported 60 clients over the year.
Our work with ex-offenders in Buckinghamshire has gone from strength to strength this year, and we successfully secured additional funding, enabling us to continue delivering our RESET service. Since April 2022, the project has successfully assisted 54 people into sustainable accommodation, supporting them to make positive choices to enable a fresh start.
Case Study
David - 250 toy tractors but just one bag of food
David came to us for support when he found himself in arrears and was facing eviction.
Paul, one of our Support Workers, visited David at his home to undertake an initial assessment. David looked visibly underweight, which raised the alarm about his wellbeing. He confided that he’d spent all his money on his 250-strong collection of toy tractor tractors, leaving only enough for one bag of pasta in the cupboard. Thankfully, Paul was able to source food vouchers so that David could stock up on necessities.
The next step was for them to look at David’s finances together. Then, alarm bells rang: David’s pension payments were entering his account and being withdrawn almost immediately. Paul began to suspect that David had fallen victim to financial abuse, and so, with David’s permission, they went to the bank to understand what was happening. Paul’s suspicions were confirmed when David shared that two people had been taking his money, leaving him with nothing. With David’s consent, Paul worked with the bank to implement some safeguarding measures to try and stop this from happening in the future. One such measure was for the bank to call Paul should David visit the bank without him, giving Paul a chance to check that David wasn’t being coerced into withdrawing money.
It wasn’t long before Paul received a call from the bank. David was there with another individual, wanting to withdraw money. The bank passed the phone to David, who asked Paul to meet him at the bank. Staff confirmed that the person with David was the same individual who had been with him many other times, encouraging him to withdraw large amounts. Paul discreetly asked David whether this person was a friend, to which David just looked away. Paul told the individual that David would no longer require her assistance and requested that she have no further contact with him.
After this encounter, David opened up about the financial abuse and how he felt threatened by this woman. He consented to Paul raising a safeguarding concern and was happy for the police to be involved. Paul identified additional safeguarding measures, like asking the landlord to ask the other tenants to refrain from letting anyone in the house, to further protect David in his home and limit any additional abuse.
Since meeting Paul and having the various measures put in place, there have been no new incidents of financial abuse, and David is now feeling safer in his own home.
Our Work
Mental Health
This year, we saw the impact of the pandemic continue to exacerbate the issues our clients face. Between the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis, we found that many of our clients were living in a heightened state of distress and their needs were growing increasingly complex. The lack of capacity in clinical systems also meant early intervention was not taking place. As a result, we adapted to ensure that appropriate mental health support was woven through each of our services.
Our Oxfordshire-based Mental Health Floating Support Service is delivered as part of the Oxfordshire Mental Health Partnership, and we focus on providing support around housing, benefits and social inclusion to enable clients to live more independently. This year, we put provisions in place to work with 92 new clients with severe and enduring mental health issues, and we successfully empowered 62 people to feel confident enough to move on from the service.
"This year, we put provisions in place to work with 92 new clients with severe and enduring mental health issues, and we successfully empowered 62 people to feel confident enough to move on from the service."
Across Oxfordshire, we also continued to deliver our Mental Health Housing Intensive Support Service, which launched as a pilot last year. This service worked with a small number of entrenched rough sleepers with acute mental health needs who had no other option, as every other service was unequipped to support them. All the clients we helped had, at some point in their lives, been hospitalised due to their mental health, with some deemed at risk of death if they spent another winter outdoors.
These clients had a history of finding it difficult to trust people or engage with services. We provided them with a furnished flat and were able to support them with paying their bills through their housing benefit and a service charge, thus avoiding going into arrears.
Entrenched addiction or physical health issues left these clients ill-equipped for life indoors, and so our Support Workers provided additional time and support to help them adapt to their new life and navigate these issues. This enabled our clients to maintain their tenancies, which would have been unlikely without our intervention.
Last financial year, we launched our Out of Hospital Service in Oxfordshire. The service aims to help clients with complex needs avoid repeat admissions to mental health wards. This year, this service has gone from strength to strength and has effectively sustained engagement with clients whose needs have often meant they were unwilling to engage with other mental health services across Oxfordshire. After seeing a reduction in costs incurred due to fewer hospital admissions, Oxford City Council (the managing partner of the service) successfully secured extension funding, affirming the need for such a service.
In Milton Keynes, our partnership work with acute mental health wards continued, and we supported close to 100 people throughout the year. By providing clients who had been discharged from hospital with support that empowered them to reintegrate into their community and sustain their tenancy, our Acute Hospital Discharge Service prevented hospital readmissions in over 98% of cases. Our Acute Admissions Avoidance Service supports clients with enduring mental health issues to prevent them from being admitted to a mental health ward.
"Over the year, we helped 431 clients develop the confidence to leave the service by connecting them with social groups."
In Buckinghamshire, our SafeHaven+ service provides alternative support to help clients avoid crises and prevent admission to hospital by improving their overall mental health and wellbeing. Our Mental Health Housing Support Workers provide intensive housing support to people in crisis, often with complex mental health needs, to enable them to build a better life and live independently in the community.
This year, we successfully supported 60 clients - none of whom needed to access A&E for emergency support which is a direct aim of the service. We had some clients referred to the service whilst awaiting discharge from a local mental health facility to ensure ongoing support was provided in the community. This not only helped clients avoid readmission, but it also improved bed flow within the facility.
Through our Buckinghamshire-based Prevention Matters service, we continued to support clients over 18 who are at risk of social isolation due to difficulty leaving the house, feelings of anxiety, isolation or loneliness, or recovery from an illness.
Over the year, we helped 431 clients develop the confidence to leave the service by connecting them with social groups, encouraging them to engage with their communities and linking them with other services for advice and support.
Case Study
Naomi* (pseudonym) – On the inside, life isn’t that simple
On the outside, Naomi is a young, capable single mum to a four-year-old boy. She lives in a quiet, well-maintained flat and will often go about her day as usual; she’ll take her son to nursery and then go to work. But on the inside, life is not that simple.
Diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression, and now undergoing an assessment for autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Naomi is determined to lead a ‘normal’ life with her son. But cries for help are not uncommon, and they often come accompanied by self-harm.
Naomi accessed our Oxfordshire Mental Health Support Service, where she met Kevin - one of our Case Workers. Together, they identified what personalised support was needed to improve her situation, settling on financial support as an excellent place to start. With Kevin’s encouragement and guidance, Naomi completed most of the PIP form herself despite finding one of the questions quite triggering, making it challenging to finish. Kevin was able to help Naomi overcome these feelings by incorporating distraction techniques, enabling her to complete the form over three sessions. Unfortunately, Naomi was not awarded PIP, so Kevin supported her to begin the appeal process.
The next few months were difficult, and Naomi decided that moving out of Oxford was the best choice for her. The area reminded her of her most recent trauma, making it difficult for her to recover. As well as receiving help from Connection Support, Naomi worked with a Mental Health Support Worker through her GP. This individual was later promoted, making Naomi feel like she was losing “a great positive help” in her life. If that wasn’t enough, Naomi discovered that she would no longer be eligible for the rent top-up she was receiving if she moved.
Knowing how vital moving was for Naomi, Kevin devised a plan. He advised her to apply for the local housing register and contact her Housing Coach – two weeks later, Naomi was bidding and was in the top 20 on three properties! Kevin wrote Naomi a supporting letter and provided her with a report (which outlined their time together) so that both could be used as evidence to support her case. Almost immediately, Naomi was told that she’d been referred to the Health and Housing team, and after a visit with them, she was moved from Band D to Band B – the highest band we could expect.
Although Naomi was still waiting for a suitable house to bid on at the time of writing, Kevin’s continued support empowered her to make changes that would drastically improve her life. Through Kevin’s continued support, Naomi developed the independence to address her challenges head on.
Our Work
Family Support
There is a strong connection between children growing up in an unstable environment and facing difficulties later in life due to early trauma.
In our experience, early intervention in the form of parental mentoring is an effective prevention strategy, and so, we have been delivering family support services for several years now.
In Buckinghamshire, we delivered our Boost Parenting Advice & Support Service, which matched volunteers with families who needed a helping hand in creating a positive environment for their children. Over the year, our Boost service supported 116 families in creating a more stable home. This financial year marked the end of this service; however, we were successfully awarded funding to deliver Thrive - a new family support service which got underway in March 2023.
"Across the services, we manage more than £1.4m of funds on behalf of clients with disabilities, half of whom are children."
We provide Self-Directed Support Services across Oxfordshire and Milton Keynes, enabling clients to develop greater independence by taking control of their budget for support and tailoring their care arrangements to suit their unique circumstances and lifestyles. Across the services, we manage more than £1.4m of funds on behalf of clients with disabilities, half of whom are children. Our services support the person to employ a carer or personal assistant directly by helping to find suitably qualified employees, providing comprehensive employment advice, and offering a Payroll Service to process wages and administer HMRC responsibilities on the employer’s behalf.
Case Study
Nicola, a volunteer for Boost
Having had children herself, Nicola knew parents' struggles – particularly if they have little to no support elsewhere. Nicola had previously worked in a preschool, and with her knowledge from various courses, she could offer some valuable support to parents in need. With her children grown up and more time on her hands, Nicola has been volunteering with Connection Support for three years, providing valuable support to families on the Boost Service. With this service coming to an end, Nicola will soon be assisting families on our Thrive service.
Nicola is hands-on when it comes to offering support, often helping parents who are struggling with boundaries and behaviours of their children. In her role, she offers advice and guidance, and may signpost parents to websites and/or courses if she thinks they could be of benefit.
With her preschool background, Nicola brings a wealth of skills to her volunteer role and can confidently pass on information or strategies to families in need. When she sees the positive impact her advice has, and how effective her recommendations are, she gets a great deal of satisfaction. She knows that her input is helping to make family life just that little bit calmer for the families she supports. Not to mention that she enjoys getting to meet new people and develop good relationships with both the parents and children too.
Not only does Nicola provide invaluable support to families in need, she has also benefitted from volunteering. She said:
“I have gained new information which also helps me in my day job. I feel lucky that I have had a positive impact in my families lives, and I have been able to provide them with support for the time I have been with them.”
Our Work
Young People
This year, we saw a significant increase in the number of young people coming to us for support with poor mental health, whilst also facing homelessness. These young people often had an undiagnosed mental health condition or learning difficulty, which drastically increased the complexity of their needs.
Our work supporting young people across Buckinghamshire evolved this year, with two of our services (Housing Interaction Trust [HIT] and Padstones Supported Accommodation) amalgamating to form one project: HITPAD. HITPAD is a young people's supported accommodation service that not only places young people (aged 16 – 24) in either shared or self-contained accommodation, but also empowers young people to develop their skills so that they can live more independently.
"We have 27 beds across Buckinghamshire, allowing us to provide safe accommodation for young people who are either homeless or at risk of imminent homelessness."
We have 27 beds across Buckinghamshire, allowing us to provide safe accommodation for young people who are either homeless or at risk of imminent homelessness. The merging of both services brought about change for both the staff and young people accessing the service, particularly because it removed the 24-hour staffing element that had previously been part of our Padstones project. This much anticipated change encouraged higher levels of independence amongst the cohort. We also found that restructuring the staff team to suit this new model allowed staff to work more flexibly, enabling them to support young people in the community far more. By the end of the year, the service had accepted 24 new referrals and successfully closed 13 cases.
Across Buckinghamshire and South Oxfordshire, we continued to deliver our Young People's Supported Accommodation service (YPSA), which supports young people aged 16 – 25 who face homelessness. The young people moved into suitable accommodation, either in self-contained units or HMOs (Houses in Multiple Occupation) and were supported to transition into mainstream adult life, finding independence through education, training, and employment. Many of the young people we helped were suffering from greater needs due to the pandemic, and we saw an increase in the number of clients coming to us with undiagnosed learning difficulties and mental health conditions. However, by providing one-to-one tailored support, the service was able to support vulnerable young people in developing daily living skills, such as cooking, budgeting, looking after their tenancy and paying their bills.
Our Support Workers also assisted them with claiming benefits, registering with a local GP, finding employment or training opportunities, and providing much-needed emotional support.
Our Work
Refugee Resettlement
Our Refugee Resettlement team provides support to refugees through Government-sponsored schemes. The families supported are resettled in the Cherwell, South Oxfordshire, and Vale of White Horse Districts of Oxfordshire and are provided with a range of emotional and practical support to help them settle into everyday life.
Eight individuals who resettled in Oxfordshire under our service between spring 2021 and spring 2023 have, with our support, secured paid work this financial year. This has taken them off the Universal Credit benefit cap, significantly improving their financial circumstances during the cost-of-living crisis. We also had several other individuals start to volunteer with a view to entering paid work.
"This year, our first client achieved monumental success: they now live independently in their own flat after successfully resolving their immigration status."
Two women from Afghan families were supported to finance sewing machines – enabling them to work towards selling clothes at a local market. The children have also taken significant steps to integrate by embracing their schools and showing dedication to their studies. One young person will begin studying for their GCSEs in September, while another has been accepted into university.
Our No Recourse to Public Funds service, delivered in partnership with Oxfordshire Homeless Movement, Aspire, Edge Housing and Asylum Welcome, supports individuals without access to benefits and housing.
The service provides accommodation for clients and helps them to recover from trauma whilst resolving their immigration status, enabling them to move into secure long-term housing. This year, our first client achieved monumental success: they now live independently in their own flat after successfully resolving their immigration status.
Case Study
Reda – Starting a new life
Seeking refuge from Syria, Reda arrived in England with his wife and three-year-old daughter and immediately began receiving support from our Refugee Resettlement team.
Reda was looking for help that could support his adjustment to living in the UK and wanted to find ways to learn English. After Reda enrolled on a course at a local college to learn the language, he spoke with his Support Worker, Isabelle, about becoming a barber. Isabelle introduced Reda to Nigel, a volunteer, and they discussed how to help Reda on his chosen career path.
When the two men met, they spoke about Reda's long-term goals, and Nigel supported Reda in approaching barbers across Oxford to find work experience; this encouraged Reda to develop both his language and interpersonal skills. The two men worked together to upskill Reda and build his confidence, and he completed six months of work experience at a local barber. Here, he developed his English by speaking to customers while observing and learning the trade.
This was just the start for Reda. He went on to secure a trainee role in an Oxford-based barber shop. Working four days a week and doing two to three haircuts a day, it's a busy time for him, but he's enjoying every day. Looking ahead, Reda wants to continue learning English and further develop his barbering skills so he can become a professional barber. His long-term ambition is to own a successful barber shop, ideally within the next four to five years.
After working with Reda, here's what Nigel had to say:
"It's very rewarding to me to see how far Reda has come, and it has been a pleasure working with him. He is intelligent, hardworking and has all the qualities he needs to succeed."
Client Testimonial
Adult Homeless Pathway
“Before Connection Support, I was using, committing crime, and had nowhere to live. I was a ‘junkie’. I was a nice person that had just done bad things to make myself feel better. I knew my family loved me, but my lifestyle hampered our relationships. My family used to hide everything because I’d sell it otherwise, and I wasn’t allowed to see my kids.
I really appreciated that staff would visit me regularly and do things like go to the dentist with me. I liked their honesty too: when I thought I was looking okay, they would explain how my using was affecting me. But having support with housing was the biggest thing, I think. I’ve got my own flat, I’ve built good relationships with my family and I’m seeing my kids – I’m trying to make them proud.
Now, my life is completely different. It’s good, clean and healthy. My Support Worker’s persistence and determination gave me hope for the future; knowing someone believed in me made all the difference.”
Our Three Year Strategic Plan
Our Strategy
Last year, to allow us to continue our vital work to the best of our ability, we launched our three-year strategic plan. This strategy identified areas where we require more robust infrastructure to continue delivering the quality services that our clients deserve. It also laid out our goals, mission, and values - all of which were developed collaboratively through a series of facilitated conversations between staff members, Board members, leadership, and senior managers, with additional input provided by clients and volunteers. Over the year, we have taken considerable steps to help us realise each of the goals defined in the strategy.
Goal 1
Grow To Positively Impact More Lives.
In our 2022 – 2023 Trustee’s Report, we promised to continue fundraising for potential projects which Connection Support is most passionate about and conduct a quality review across our programme delivery.
What we did:
- Our Fundraising team generated £278,118 in charitable grants and donations in this financial year. With this income, not only have we been able to strengthen existing services and improve client support, but we have also developed new, fundraised projects, like our No Recourse to Public Funds service, which helps people experiencing homelessness who have lost, or don’t have access to, benefits and housing.
- As a charity that believes in social justice; equality, diversity, equity and inclusion (EDEI) is incredibly important to us. Last year, we made an explicit commitment to EDEI, and vowed to be proactive in our approach. This year, we have continued to develop our EDEI strategy and continue to take forward our EDEI development plan – a living document that is worked on, added to, and reviewed quarterly. The Diversity Trust, who have been supporting us through this journey, undertook a review of our efforts and found that we actively place EDEI at our core. We developed EDEI champion roles to help steer our work, promote positive practices, and hold the organisation accountable for actions on the development plan. These will be recruited for in 2023 - 2024.
- We employed a full-time Marketing and Communications Manager last year to lead on the development and implementation of a marketing strategy. This year, we’ve seen the benefits of investing in this post. It has allowed us to undertake a variety of activities to further our reach, including redesigning our website for a better user experience and proactively promoting our services to reach a wider audience.
Goal 2
Invest in Our Infrastructure
In our 2022 – 2023 Trustee’s Report, we promised to introduce further Office 365 features and work towards achieving Cyber Essentials Certification. We said we would consult internally to design a new client database, introduce a new contract management system and continue to monitor resourcing, filling gaps as necessary. We promised to develop a marketing and communications strategy, conduct a complete review of our website and launch a new intranet. We also said we would develop and begin to implement an Equality Diversity Equity and Inclusion strategy and employ a recruitment specialist to enable our managers to focus more on frontline work.
What we did:
- We identified the need for an Estates team to manage our supported accommodation provision. At the end of the financial year, we recruited our Head of Estates. This development will enable Team Managers to fully focus their energy on support, leaving tenancy and property issues to this specialist team.
- We recruited our new Head of Fundraising, as well as a Community Fundraiser, which enabled us to generate greater levels of welfare funding, fund three projects that would otherwise not exist, and enhance many services.
- We invested in an IT team, as well as our IT systems, to help us reduce inefficiencies by working smarter. By upgrading our IT infrastructure, we’ve been able to adapt to new, integrated services which make collaborating much easier, particularly as many of our staff work remotely.
- We completed our Cyber Essentials accreditation and began working toward Cyber Essentials Plus.
- We began consultation on our new database system, which is an ongoing project.
- We established a communications and marketing strategy which we have begun to implement and will be reviewing progress within the next financial year.
- We have made amendments to our website to improve the user experience and have launched an intranet which all staff members and volunteers have access to.
Goal 3
Ensure Clients Are Directly Involved in Shaping Our Work
In our 2022 – 2023 Trustee’s Report, we promised to deliver the client involvement strategy and in particular, recruit a Board member with lived experience, develop training and support materials for clients, involve them further in recruitment, ensure staff buy-in to principles of client involvement and establish a system to evaluate the effectiveness of our efforts towards meaningful involvement.
What we did:
- We launched our Peer Mentor Service pilot in Milton Keynes. We trained a group of individuals, all of whom were previous clients of ours, so that they could use their own lived experience to support others and directly influence our work. This was a success and we’ve continued to actively recruit more Peer Mentors.
- We invited clients from our Oxfordshire Adult Homeless Pathway to join us at a client involvement workshop to discuss how, from their perspective, we could best establish peer mentoring in Oxfordshire. Their feedback was exceptionally insightful, and considered the types of support and training that may be needed, alongside the language used to describe the initiative.
- We worked with two Oxford University Interns, who conducted research into ‘EDI among our volunteer workforce’ and ‘How client feedback is collected in an effective and meaningful way’. The learnings from these reports will feed directly into our work.
- After recruiting a dedicated Client Involvement and Volunteering Manager last year, we evaluated how clients directly contribute to the shaping of our work. The learnings from this have been embedded into our client involvement and volunteering strategy.
- We started to involve clients in senior level interviews.
- We recruited a Board member with lived experience.
- We have also identified the need for Client Involvement Champions – staff who will actively promote and facilitateclient involvement within teams and services across Connection Support. These will be recruited in the next financial year.
Goal 4
Invest in People Development
In our 2022 – 2023 Trustee’s Report, we promised to implement an enhanced employee benefits package and continue to do all we can to ease the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on our employees. We said we would introduce new employee communication processes, such as online Town Hall and Team Manager meetings, to help employees to share experiences and engage with the wider organisation. We also promised to conduct our first ever comprehensive staff survey, whilst investing in employee wellbeing and establishing a competency framework.
What we did:
- Assessed our staffing model to better understand the success of our recruitment practice. Senior Managers discuss a quarterly report which monitors the success of our recruitment efforts, the costs associated with recruitment as well as staff turnover. It provides an opportunity to reflect on our recruitment practice and compare data to discern any patterns or trends.
- With Board approval, we were able to announce both an annual wage and employers’ pension contribution increase, taking our pension contribution above the statutory minimum amount for the first time in our history. This comes from our commitment to always pay as generously as we can afford to.
- We provided a one-off payment to all staff members, to assist them in coping during the worst of the cost-of-living crisis and to help them manage their utility bills throughout the winter.
- We completed a staff questionnaire to identify which benefits our staff would value most highly, helping us launch a diverse benefits package. Through the likes of a Health Cash Plan and discounted nursery costs, staff can save money through tax benefits and discounts.
- We worked with an external organisation to conduct an unbiased staff engagement survey. Through Best Companies, we invited staff to complete the survey to better understand how, as an organisation, we perform on topics such as wellbeing, personal growth, salary and benefits, as well as management and leadership. Based on the results, we were recognised by Best Companies us as one of the top 25 charities to work for in the UK. More crucially, the survey results will allow us to implement positive changes based on insights that have come directly from our staff.
- We established a wellbeing working group to develop our commitment to our team’s welfare. The group reviewed the ideas that came from the staff survey, looked at current best practice to promote wellbeing and implemented changes to promote a culture of positive wellbeing. Looking ahead, this work will be taken forward by our Wellbeing Champions.
Goal 5
Develop Our Housing Management Capacity
In our 2022 – 2023 Trustee’s Report, we promised to develop a housing management strategy, with the aim of providing a greater quantity of appropriate high-quality accommodation for clients and review our office estate.
What we did:
- We successfully secured several independent lease arrangements, increasing our capacity to house more clients, whilst reducing our reliance on our partners.
- We invested in our Estates team to oversee our supported accommodation provision, allowing Team Managers to focus their energy on supporting clients.
Refined Goals for 2024
Plans for the Future, Future Direction of the Charity and Likely Future Developments
In January 2023, we reviewed and refreshed our strategy. We refined our goals to place extra emphasis where needed to be able to deliver the strategy by the end of FY 2023 - 2024. Our goals for next year are therefore:
- Growth: we will continue our track-record of successful retendering and extending contracts, further hone and target our tendering skills and improve our processes. We will deliver our marketing and fundraising strategies and identify further specific groups of clients for whom there is no existing provision and develop proposals to meet these.
- Infrastructure: we will develop more tools and information to enable frontline workers to deliver for clients e.g. complete Office 365 roll-out and training and achieve Cyber Essentials Plus Accreditation. We will continue to assess management/business service capacity alongside organisational growth and proactively manage risk through improved controls and procedures.
- People development, client involvement and volunteering: we will implement client involvement and volunteering strategies, follow up focus areas from this year’s staff survey, such as wellbeing collaboration, and plan to repeat survey in summer 2023 to track progress. We will continue to enhance our training and employee benefits, develop a competency system and make salary awards as generous as possible within budget parameters.
- Housing: we will invest in our housing management capability, develop an estates strategy, review our office estate, improve our compliance systems, and maintain a focus on environmental considerations.
- Client work: we will continue to develop our work in our current geographies and specialisms and proactively network and engage with partners to develop further opportunities to meet gaps in service provision.
- Collaboration: we will purposefully build robust relationships with partners and other stakeholders throughout our geographical areas.
- Quality and impact: we will establish a robust quality assurance process to ensure the best outcomes for clients and a means of quantifying and demonstrating the impact we have on their lives.
- Equality, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (EDEI): we will implement our EDEI strategy, including establishing a network of champions and training at all levels to create an inclusive environment.
During 2023-24, we will develop a new strategy and plan for 2024–27. The consultation process will meaningfully involve staff, volunteers, clients, management, and the Board of Trustees.
Gratitude
Thank You
All that we have achieved this year would have been impossible without our partners, donors, volunteers, and staff – thank you.
We are immensely grateful for every donation we receive and would like to say thank you to everyone who has given their time, energy, and financial support to Connection Support over the past year.
Reference and Administrative Details
Connection Support (The Old School, First Turn, Oxford, England, OX2 8AH) is a limited company registered in England and Wales (03072719) and a registered charity in England and Wales (1049740).
"We are immensely grateful for every donation we receive and would like to say thank you to everyone who has given their time, energy, and financial support to Connection Support over the past year."
Trustees
Richard Allman (Chair)
Emma Duke (Vice Chair) (appointed 14.07.22)
James Arnold
Paul Aston
Mike Wortley
Anne Cooney (resigned 01.05.23)
Luka Winterborne (appointed 14.05.22)
David Bayes (resigned 14.05.22)
Jennifer Berrill (resigned 15.05.22)
Emily Dobell (resigned 30.09.23)
Dipen Parekh (resigned 10.06.22)
Liam Moore (appointed 29.09.22)
Helen Amura (appointed 12.07.23)
Rumbidzai Takundwa (appointed 14.08.23)
Secretary
Christopher Keating
Auditors
Critchleys Audit LLP,
Beaver House,
23-38 Hythe Bridge Street,
Oxford,
OX1 2EP
A charitable company, limited by guarantee
Structure, Governance and Management
Connection Support is a charitable company, limited by guarantee. It is governed by its Articles of Association, dated 26 May 1995.
The Trustee Board is responsible for the governance of the charity. The day-to-day running of the charity is delegated to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) who is supported by two Deputy CEOs, the Business Services Director, and the Finance Director.
The Board of Trustees
Connection Support is governed by a Board of unpaid Trustees who meet with the staff leadership team every two months. The Board delegates monitoring of financial matters to a Finance Sub-committee, which meets once a quarter and delivery of organisational development initiatives to a Development Sub-committee, which meets every two months. Other committees can be formed on a task-focused basis.
Under the requirements of the Memorandum and Articles of Association, one third of Board members, or if their number is not a multiple of three, then the number nearest to one third, shall retire from office at the Annual General Meeting each year. Any Trustee appointed between Annual General Meetings shall only retain office until the next Annual General Meeting and then shall be eligible for re-election. The Trustees who served the charity during the financial year, alongside Trustees who have recently been appointed, can be viewed on the previous page. In September 2023, James Arnold retired from his position as Chair of the Trustee Board. Richard Allman was elected as Chair, with Emma Duke elected as Vice-Chair.
Recruitment and Appointment of Trustees
The Board aims to ensure that a broad range of experience is represented by Trustees, particularly in health, housing, social care, business and finance. A skills audit of Board members is conducted every two years to inform recruitment and succession planning. Detailed information is provided to prospective Trustees, including governing documents, financial accounts, Charity Commission guidance on the responsibilities of Trustees and information about the charity’s services. Applicants are invited to an informal discussion with the CEO followed by a formal interview with two Board Members and the CEO. The interview covers the responsibilities of Trustees, in line with Charity Commission guidance and the Charity Code of Governance. References are taken prior to full Board approval of appointment.
Trustees’ Induction and Training
New Trustees are provided with information about the charity including its strategy, plans, organisational structure, finances and risk register. New Trustees meet with the CEO for a full briefing on the charity’s work and to agree areas of more specific input. Newly appointed Trustees are supported by a mentor from the Board during their induction period. Training opportunities are circulated to Board members as they arise.
Charitable Objectives
To relieve poverty, sickness and distress in people over the age of 16 and living, or about to live, in local authority, housing association or private accommodation (particularly but not exclusively those who have been in care or have been homeless, those who suffer from mental health problems and those with previous or current addiction to drugs or alcohol) through the provision of advice and advocacy services, counselling support and whatever charitable means the Trustees shall decide.
Statement of Public Benefit
The Trustees take into account the Charity Commission guidance on public benefit and believe that the activities of Connection Support as set out in this report cover the duty of showing public benefit in line with that guidance. Our principal public benefit is to enable vulnerable people to maintain their independence, this includes people with mental health problems, drug and alcohol problems, families, young people, refugees, people who have been homeless, older people and people with an offending background. People who receive support must need this support to enable them to live independently. There is no charge for this support.
Fundraising
Connection Support is registered with the Fundraising Regulator and our fundraising activities adhere to the Fundraising Code of Conduct. Our fundraising practice is open, honest, and respectful, and we ensure that the needs of donors who may be in vulnerable circumstances are considered. We did not receive any complaints related to fundraising during this period.
The charity is deeply grateful for the support it has received over the year from trusts and foundations, local organisations, town, district and county councils and members of the public. This year, we saw a growing need amongst the people we work with for basic household furniture and provisions. We are grateful to the charitable organisations who responded with their support. We are delighted to have raised over £278,000 in charitable income from local and national trusts and foundations, individual donors, and local organisations. Fundraised income is used to support projects that would not otherwise exist, such as our No Recourse to Public Funds service, which supports people experiencing homelessness who are not entitled to state-funded benefits.
Equality, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
As part of our ongoing commitment to being a truly inclusive organisation, we have implemented an EDEI Development Plan with the support of The Diversity Trust. This plan is reviewed on a quarterly basis and has resulted in the creation of ongoing commitments, such as identifying regular training, encouraging client involvement to shape our work, and setting up networks to support staff needs. Our aim is to ensure that all our staff, clients and volunteers feel welcomed and supported, and feel free to be their authentic selves.
Environment
Connection Support recognises that our work has an impact on the local, regional, and global environment. We are committed to continuously improving our environmental performance by prioritising sustainability, energy efficiency and making the most effective use of resources.
Risk Management
Connection Support has introduced improved risk management processes this year, including a more detailed risk register, which identifies risks and mitigations in the following categories: governance, external, regulatory and compliance, financial and operational. It highlights the ‘hottest’ risks which need to most urgently be mitigated and the CEO reviews this monthly with the senior management team to proactively build a culture of risk management as well as bringing it to the board on a two-monthly basis.
A continued trajectory of growth
Financial Review
Connection Support continued its trajectory of growth this financial year, with income increasing by 14% to £8.6m. This has been driven by our ambition to meet the support needs of each individual we work with and achieved by ongoing investment in supported accommodation and fundraising activities.
We are developing a growing number of activities supported by non-statutory income in order to ensure that our services can best meet the needs of the communities we work in. These include, for example, our family support service in Buckinghamshire, and our work with individuals who, due to their immigration or asylum seeker status, have no recourse to public funds.
Our provision of supported accommodation has increased from 133 to 154 units over the course of the financial year, including growing housing provisions for both young people and people in need of temporary accommodation after leaving hospital, through our Step Down houses (see page X).
Expenditure for the financial year was £8.2m, increasing by 12% from the prior year. The net effect was a £0.1m balance of restricted charitable funds, plus £0.25m increase in unrestricted funds for the year, which enabled us to ensure that free reserves are maintained within our target range. We have continued to ensure that funds are committed wherever possible to support our charitable work, with 99.4% of organisational expenditure supporting charitable activities (see below).
The cost-of-living crisis continues to jeopardise the security of many of the people we work with. We are immensely grateful to the individuals and charitable organisations who continued to support accommodation costs and the provision of basic household items for those with emergency needs. With their support, were delighted to have been able to provide direct support for families and individuals worth a total of £182,176.
Reserves Policy
It is the policy of Connection Support to maintain free unrestricted reserves (that is, unrestricted reserves not invested in fixed assets or designated for specific purposes) at a target level which can finance at least four months’ full payroll and operational costs.
This has been established as the level which provides Connection Support with the financial stability to deliver the organisation’s core activities, without compromising the principle that the income received will be used to support the charitable objectives of the organisation wherever possible.
Whilst this reserves policy is designed primarily to satisfy Connection Support’s charitable objectives, the level of four months’ reserves additionally provides a window for the Senior Leadership Team to manage cashflow issues, in the event of delays receiving contract income due.
As an additional requirement, Connection Support ensures that unrestricted reserves are maintained at a level which can support the winding up of the organisation in a solvent manner, should this scenario occur. Winding up costs are currently calculated to be at a level which is lower than the 4 months’ running costs.
On 31 March 2023, Connection Support held free reserves of £2,320,894, compared to a target level of £2,265,300. In addition to this, £138,250 reserves were designated at the year end to complete the implementation of the SharePoint document management system and to support the planned installation of a new client database.
Investment Policy
Connection Support aims to maintain its free reserves in a way which ensures that (i) funds are accessible to support the liquidity of the organisation on a day-to-day basis, whilst also (ii) upholding the value of the organisational balance sheet against rising inflation in the longer term.
To achieve this, the trustees have established a multipronged approach:
- For the current 3-year strategic period, the trustees have planned investment of approximately £250,000 per year into organisational development. In the last three years, this has proved successful, yielding a return in diversified income streams and more robust risk management processes.
- To the extent that reserves are required to support the routine cashflow demands associated with local authority contract funding, funds are held in instant access bank and building society accounts.
- Funds which the Board have set aside to achieve longer term growth, are maintained in an investment fund, designed to return a rate of the Consumer Price Index + 2% over a ten-year period.
The Finance Subcommittee of the Board of Trustees review the performance of investments on a quarterly basis.
Overview of our services
What We Do
Homelessness and Housing
Adult Homeless Pathway (Oxfordshire) - Providing accommodation and support to single homeless people over the age of 18 across North Oxfordshire, West Oxfordshire, and Oxford City. We have 83 rooms in a mixture of shared houses in Oxford, Witney, and Banbury in which we can support clients to help them build skills and move onto long-term independent living. When moving on from the pathway 12 weeks resettlement support is also offered to support people with the transition and to also settle them into their new homes.
Supported Lettings (Oxford City) - We work with clients when they move into social housing for the duration of their 12-month probationary period of their tenancies. This is specifically for clients who would, without our interventions, be considered unsuitable for social housing. We help them with all aspects of tenancy sustainment, for example, utilities set-up, social inclusion, change of benefits, change of GP, mental/physical health and substance misuse.
Embedded Housing Workers (Oxfordshire) - EHWs are located at hospitals across Oxfordshire to reduce the number of patients who have extended stays in hospital because, although they are medically well enough to be discharged, they either have no housing provision at all, or there are barriers to them returning to their own accommodation. They work with medical teams to reduce the number of patients discharged with no housing provision in place and prevent repeat admission of rough sleepers. They ensure presentations to local housing authorities are done in a managed way, identify and understand patients’ housing issues to enable a successful discharge, and monitor and report on outcomes.
Housing First (Milton Keynes) - An evidence-based approach that puts the provision of an independent home first, followed by personalised support, to enable individuals with a history of entrenched or repeat homelessness to begin recovery. Research shows that through this approach residents are 70-90% more likely to remain housed. Working with Milton Keynes Council, who provide the accommodation, our ‘Housing First’ service supports adults over the age of 18 who have been rough sleeping in Milton Keynes and have a local connection to the area.
Housing First (Oxfordshire) - Housing First Oxfordshire provides a home and intensive support to former rough sleepers during their journey from rough sleeping to a more settled lifestyle within their own home and to improve their health and wellbeing.
Housing Support Service (Oxfordshire) - Connection Support has been running the Housing Support Service in Oxfordshire since its foundation in 1995. The service is delivered by floating support workers, using a person-centred approach, to enable clients who are at risk of homelessness to maintain their tenancies and access services to avoid entering the homeless pathway. The team support and equip clients with the tools to manage their money, navigate benefits, be independent and avoid homelessness.
Next Steps Accommodation (Milton Keynes) - Next Steps Accommodation placements are for people identified with lower-level support needs who have previously been homeless and require support and interventions to sustain a tenancy. Clients can live in the accommodation for a fixed-term period of three years. After the fixed period clients are supported to access alternative properties and we secure long-term accommodation for people who are identified as ready to move on.
One Recovery Bucks (Buckinghamshire) - ORB provides support into rented accommodation for people over the age of 18 who are doing well in their recovery from drug or alcohol addiction (they must have abstained for at least 3 months). Pre-tenancy support is provided, alongside guidance on sustaining a tenancy and help with budgeting, accessing benefits, paying bills, training opportunities and employment. We have a total of 20 flats across the county.
Orchard House (Milton Keynes) - Supported accommodation for vulnerable homeless single people with medium to high mental health needs. There is 24/7 support on site and they also have one-to-one key workers to help them prepare to move on to a more independent lifestyle and an improved quality of life.
Reset (Buckinghamshire) - Support for ex-offenders to access accommodation and make positive life choices to reduce the risk of them reoffending and returning to prison. The team provides support with finding accommodation, tenancy sustainment, accessing benefits, training, education, and employment opportunities, help with physical or mental health issues or substance abuse.
Rough Sleeper Outreach and Rough Sleeper Initiative (Buckinghamshire) - Our Rough Sleeper Outreach Service enables rough sleepers to build a better future beyond street life. We support people living on the streets of Buckinghamshire to find more settled accommodation and receive the benefits they are entitled to. We enable them to access health, addiction, and other support services relevant to their individual needs. The Rough Sleeper Initiative has twenty-one emergency beds available for rough sleepers and support to enable them to move on successfully. This service also has a tenancy sustainment element, which provides life tools and support to rough sleepers in Buckinghamshire, so they can live independently in their own rented home. We help clients manage their money – rental payments, bills, budgeting, access to benefits, training, routes to employment, and access support for mental and physical health issues.
Rough Sleeper Outreach (Oxfordshire) - Our Outreach service in Oxfordshire helps people who are sleeping rough to find settled accommodation. Support workers also help them access health and mental health services, drug, and alcohol support services, and receive the benefits they are entitled to.
Step Down Housing (Oxfordshire) - Short-term housing for vulnerable patients who are medically ready to be discharged from the Oxfordshire University or Oxfordshire Foundation Trust Hospitals but lack suitable accommodation to continue their recovery. This includes people who are homeless, have a history of drug/alcohol misuse, people who have no recourse to public funds or issues with their immigration status, those fleeing domestic violence, or people with mobility issues. We appoint Embedded Housing Workers (EHWs) into the hospitals to upskill medical staff and social workers about the complexities of housing these patients.
South and Vale Floating Support and Winter Night Shelter - Our support workers are embedded alongside housing officers to support clients placed within temp accommodation to move on to more settled accommodation and provide resettlement for the initial weeks of their new tenancies. (This service also covers a Winter Night Shelter provision for rough sleepers within South and Vale, although this has only been held once due to COVID.
Mental Health
Acute Hospital Discharge, Acute Admissions Avoidance Service and Blessings (Milton Keynes) - Supporting clients who have been admitted into the acute mental health wards and supporting them back into the community and to sustain their tenancy.
Mental Health Intensive Support Service (Oxfordshire) - Support for up to five people with the highest and most complex mental health needs and who have not succeeded at independent living in the past. This client group have a history of street homelessness and require intensive support to gain the most basic life skills to enable them to adapt to living indoors, set up home and maintain a tenancy.
Mental Health Support Service (Oxfordshire) - As part of the Oxfordshire Mental Health Partnership we provide focused support for between 6 months to 2 years to help people with severe and enduring mental health issues move forward. Offering support around housing, benefits and social inclusion, this supports recovery and enables the clients to live more independently. Some of the team are embedded in the Adult Mental Health Teams to identify and support those patients who present with housing needs straight away.
Mental Health Support Service (Milton Keynes) - We offer housing related-support to help clients with mental health needs to avoid homelessness or to sustain a tenancy and maintain their independence. It’s a flexible service, which will meet with clients in the local community or in their home. Support moves with them wherever they go and the service complements and works in partnership with any statutory or voluntary agency where our support cannot wholly meet the needs of the individual. ‘Windrush’ is also part of this service – independent supported accommodation for clients with Autism.
Out of Hospital (Oxfordshire) - Our specialist support workers partner with a multi-disciplinary team of psychiatrists, social workers, and housing officers to support people with complex mental health who are homeless (or at risk of homelessness). They work to help people to move on from hospital to settled accommodation and prevent them returning to hospital in the future by solving housing and other linked issues to give them increased stability.
Rise and Shine (Oxfordshire) - The Rise & Shine service operates in partnership with Elmore Community Services. It provides targeted support for up to six months to help people to recover from mental health problems many of which were made worse as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. We work alongside clients to provide short-term interventions to help improve mental well-being and enable recovery, build up their confidence and improve self-esteem.
SafeHaven+ (Buckinghamshire) - Working alongside Buckinghamshire Mind, Citizens Advice Bucks, Oasis Partnership and Adult Mental Health Teams this service provides support to adults with mental health issues and potentially complex needs. The project as a whole aims to avoid crisis and admission to hospital and improve overall mental health and wellbeing and Connection Support’s role is to provide intensive support specifically relating to housing.
Prevention Matters (Buckinghamshire) - Prevention Matters supports people over the age of 18 who are struggling to remain independent in their own home, having difficulty getting out and about, recovering from an illness or feeling lonely, isolated or anxious. The support workers help them to regain their confidence and maintain their independence.
Family Support
Boost Parenting Advice & Support (Buckinghamshire) - Boost provides support, motivation, encouragement, and advice to parents living in Buckinghamshire to take steps towards creating a more stable and positive environment in which their children can thrive.
Direct Payment Support Services (Milton Keynes) - In some circumstances, social or health care users can be given money in the form of a Direct Payment from their local authority to commission their own services which enables disabled people to tailor their own care arrangements that suit their unique circumstances and lifestyle. Where local authorities may tend to offer, for example access to a day centre, individuals might prefer to meet friends for lunch, to go fishing, or attend a local gym, but need support to do so. This service supports the person to employ a carer or personal assistant directly by helping to find suitably qualified employees, providing comprehensive employment advice and offering a Payroll Service to process payslips and administrate HMRC responsibilities on the employer’s behalf.
Family Solutions Plus (Oxfordshire) - Support for parents and carers who experience mental health issues that then impact the home environment for their children to the extent that they are under a plan with social services. In partnership with Oxfordshire Mind and Elmore Community Services, clients are offered up to six individual sessions with adult facing practitioners embedded in social care teams. These mental health workers provide tools to help parents learn how to manage their mental health better in order to stabilise their environment and ultimately prevent the need for their children to be placed into the care system.
Thrive (Buckinghamshire) - Thrive provides support to families in specific areas, delivered by a team of Family Liaison Workers, supported by volunteer parenting mentors, peer mentors and family advocates, to work alongside families, supporting, encouraging and empowering the family to build their skills, confidence and parental wellbeing to create a stable positive environment for their children. We offer a tailored programme of support to each family, based on listening to their social, emotional, educational and health needs which include, but are not limited to, substance dependency, domestic violence, learning difficulties, social exclusion, and lack of parenting skills.
Young People
Housing Interaction Trust (Buckinghamshire) - We have twelve units of accommodation specifically for young people to support those who have nowhere else to go. We support the young people to develop general household skills, budget and manage their finances, maintain personal health, prepare for independent accommodation and manage individual personal and emotional matters.
Padstones Supported Accommodation (Buckinghamshire) - Padstones prevents young people (aged 16-25 years) becoming homeless by providing accommodation along with visiting support. The team empower young people and develop their resilience, skills and knowledge to prevent the risk of homelessness arising again. It provides a safe and secure environment for residents to develop their potential and move towards more independent living. Accommodation is in two small residential projects in Burnham and High Wycombe, young people have a key worker for one-to-one support. For young people ready to move on from the higher support units, Padstones offers other accommodation with lower-level support.
Young People’s Supported Accommodation (Oxfordshire) - YPSA provides supported accommodation in Buckinghamshire and South Oxfordshire for young people (aged 16-25 years) leaving care. Young people referred to us by Oxfordshire County Council are provided with their own accommodation and regular visits from a Support Worker to help them gain confidence in living independently.
Refugee Resettlement
Refugee Resettlement (Oxfordshire) - This service is for refugees resettling in the UK as part of Government’s sponsored resettlement schemes. The families supported live in the South and Vale and the Cherwell District areas of Oxfordshire and we provide a range of emotional and practical support to help the families settle into everyday life. The team supports families mostly coming from Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Sudan to manage the transition from living in camps and unsettled accommodation to making a home in Oxfordshire, and helps them to adapt to different social norms and legal frameworks. We work with them through the whole process from airport pick up to the point they can live independently and manage their tenancy without the need for support. The team connects the families to health services and mental health support, schools, English language classes, employment opportunities and local community groups. Working alongside volunteers they also provide information about culture and life in Britain to enable them to make those steps towards living a settled life in the UK.
No Recourse to Public Funds (Buckinghamshire) - Providing support to people experiencing homelessness in Buckinghamshire who do not have access to state-funded benefits and housing. People in this situation are often not allowed to work, neither are they eligible for benefits, nor allowed to use public services except for basic health care. This leaves them at high risk of abuse and exploitation. The aim is to help this group of people move on from the trauma of homelessness, by offering them dignified accommodation, whilst they receive help and advice to resolve any legal matters including their immigration status, and help them to get their lives back on track.
No Recourse to Public Funds (Oxfordshire) - Helping people experiencing homelessness in Oxfordshire who have lost or don’t have access to state-funded benefits and housing. This project is funded by the Oxfordshire Homeless Movement, and the aim is to provide tailored support to allow these people to become self-sufficient and take practical steps to rebuild their lives. We work in partnership with Aspire and Asylum Welcome to help this group of people move on from the trauma of homelessness. Working with local housing association SOHA and Edge Housing, we can offer these clients dignified accommodation, whilst they receive help and advice to resolve any legal matters including their immigration status, and help them to get their lives back on track.