Ethos

Statement of Belief

As a Christian faith based organisation, we believe that through the power of love, forgiveness and faith, all people are capable of personal transformation.

We value the image of God in all people, everywhere and create an environment that demonstrates an alternative lifestyle recognising each individual’s personal choice.

Philosophy of Care

A detailed explanation of Trinity’s Mission, Values and Organisational Standards

Introduction

The work was started by a local church group in response to local homeless people coming to the church for help. As the work grew the church partnered with The Shaftesbury Society and between them raised the funds to purchase three local houses. The work outgrew the capacity of the local church and Yeldall were approached. Yeldall are a Christian faith-based organisation working in the field of drug and alcohol rehabilitation. Yeldall took over the work in 1988 as there is a lot of cross over between problematic drug and alcohol use and homelessness and the fact that the work was faith-based.

We value the image of God in all people and recognise that God’s work is not limited to the church or believers. We see that the values that make us human are God’s values, and for us; it’s about getting the job description right. Christ’s command is to love our neighbour (Mat 22:39). At Trinity we believe that this love is seen by being prepared to live deeply with one another, carrying each other's burdens, sharing our possessions, to pray for and be accountable to each other, to suffer and celebrate together. It's in these honest, loving relationships that God transforms us and truth becomes a reality. Trinity creates an environment that demonstrates this alternative lifestyle and recognises each individual’s personal choice. We believe that through the power of love, forgiveness and faith, all people are capable of personal transformation. Whilst respecting and promoting each individuals rights, Trinity is not a rights based organisation. Everything we do is governed by our values

No one wakes up one morning and decided to become homeless. Homelessness is caused by being forced to leave where you live without having anywhere permanent to go. No one chooses this, either it is preferable to staying where you are or someone else has chosen it for you. Compounding this trauma is the difficulties faced by being homeless. The effects of three months homelessness can take three years to combat! Often added to this are the problems of drug use, alcoholism and offending behaviour. This is Trinity’s client group.

Philosophy of Care

We conduct daily prayer and reflection that helps us introduce the creative power of God into our day. We follow the Christian calendar as a celebration of our faith and pay respects to other faith and secular celebrations throughout the year as part of our support of people spiritual and celebratory needs. We don’t engage in evangelism, but we are prepared to share our faith and experience if asked. However, once the questions stop, so do we.

Following Maslow’s1 Hierarchy of Need, we accept, make room for and exercise restraint in dealing with behaviour that demonstrates the effects of homelessness and exclusion.

All our words and actions are seasoned with kindness as we minister in the opposite spirit to the cruelty mostly felt in our Service Users lives.

We recognise the power of forgiveness to unlock emotional and physical problems and understand that forgiveness is mostly absent from our Service Users lives. We actively look for every opportunity to model and teach forgiveness to each other.

We recognise that being generous with our resources results in joy and is the antidote to poverty.

Everything we do and every penny we spend can be tracked directly to the transforming of peoples lives.

We will do our up most to reduce our carbon footprint through responsibly turning off unused lights, turning heating down or off, using long life bulbs, insulating properties properly, recycling, making only essential journeys and using sustainable materials and products.

We say and act the truth and our values are obvious by this. We recognise that real honesty is not just being dishonest, but being forthcoming.

We know the behaviour to be avoided and act upon things we should. We keep our promises.

We are not only accountable or our own words and actions but for those around us and we give each other the authority to hold us to account.

We see our work more of a ‘calling’ towards altruistic or spiritual fulfilment rather than a job for financial benefit, although there is not room for abusing this goodwill through low pay or long hours. Its this calling that drives us to give of our best by ‘going the extra mile’ and to nurture this in others.

Working within contractual constraints we aim to offer generous terms and conditions of employment and innovative personal development opportunities that honour everyone employed by us.

We create environments that give each individual the opportunity to choose. We honour this right to choose, but may not agree with the choice made, and therefore work within the typical frameworks to respond accordingly.

We are honoured in being able to join people on their individual journey. We are able to offer opportunity, experience, advice and guidance and some direction, but we always remember its their journey.

We have always developed our services through the involvement of our Service Users, by regularly listening to their needs we are able to not only respond to the changing needs but to provide the kind of service they require.

We try to work with all the referral agents in planning the appropriate support for each individual as well as involving stakeholders in long-term planning of our services.

The three main services we provide reflect the three building blocks for independence; housing, training and employment. We work as a team to see transformation in each person we support regardless of where we work.

We strive for excellence in all we do, not cutting corners or hiding mistakes. We see everything as potential for learning and display this through achieving recognised quality standards.

Trinity choose to work with single people suffering the effects of homelessness, problematic drug use, alcoholism and offending behaviour. We deliberately provide small houses that represent a home and provides the sense of security and support our client group need to recover and grow. In small houses it is hard to become isolated and it is hard to hide from people and problems. You know who is living with you and it teaches you respect as you take responsibility for the house and your house mates recovery. Small houses are unrecognisable as hostels and blend into the surrounding. Small house make transition to independent accommodation easier.

To best enable an individuals recovery we operate a strict housing management system. We will mix single homeless people with problematic drug users, problematic alcohol users and offenders in the appropriate proportions that are safe for housing management.

Whilst giving people the time and space for recovery, we expect people to engage and take responsibility for their own recovery and development. Using the Cycle of Change2 we understand not everyone will recognise their need to change so we interview everyone to assess their motivation.

Once at the hostel people are expected to address the reasons that caused their homelessness, to engage in the life of the community and to eventually demonstrate the skills and desire to live independently. This means; not lying in bed during the day, not living in isolation from staff or residents, using the support and engaging in training and employment.

Our values are reflected in our House Rules. We see choosing not to engage with the support or the community within the house a person is choosing not to stay in our accommodation. In this instance we will try to find suitable alternative accommodation, but this can not be guaranteed.

Information about Service Users is confidential to Trinity as a whole, and NOT to individual workers. Whilst it is essential that all workers within the organisation understand and support the Confidentiality Policy and accept responsibility for the security of the information they encounter, this does not mean that all workers have access to all confidential information. Normally, information will be shared on a “need to know” basis and good practice will limit to a minimum the sharing of knowledge within the organisation.

We acknowledge the value of diversity and embrace different life experiences and attributes as a positive contribution to the charity, which promotes both client satisfaction and the reputation of the charity.

We are committed to becoming an equal opportunities organisation and to promoting equal opportunities and preventing discrimination. This applies to both service delivery and employment. We believe that one of the core values of our faith is the need to treat every individual in a way that respects the dignity, uniqueness and intrinsic worth of each person. We acknowledge that prejudice and discrimination can exist but we are committed to ensuring that no-one working for us, with us or receiving our services (or applying to do any of these things) is discriminated against because of their disability, ethnicity or national origin, race, gender, marital status, domestic circumstances, age and sexual orientation and faith (religious belief). We will not tolerate discrimination, victimisation or harassment and will be proactive in preventing such incidents and investigating allegations of incidents.

Our Anti Discriminatory practice is based on two core principles:

People who are different in one way or another should not be expected to “conform” or minimise their differences. Ways should be found to celebrate and value differences. · Staff or Service Users who express prejudices will be challenged.

1 http://www.abraham-maslow.com/m_motivation/Hierarchy_of_Needs.asp

2 http://www.alcohol-drugs.co.uk/themes/Cycle%2520of%2520Change.htm

Mission & Values

Who are we?

Trinity Homeless Projects

Why are we here?

Trinity works to achieve transformation in the lives of people suffering the effects of homelessness and exclusion.

What do we do?

Supported Housing Providing a safe environment that promotes lasting change.

Supported Training Providing appropriate, non-threatening opportunities of learning,training and qualifications.

Supported Employment Providing employment opportunities at a living wage.

How do we do it?

Trinity is a Christian faith based organisation and we are committed to: