Nottingham's befriending scheme gives practical and emotional aid to homeless people
We developed our befriending scheme for young black homeless people because the feedback we were getting from such people was that they needed support up to, and after, the time they secured permanent accommodation.

A lot of the befrienders are professionals, and many have a homelessness, housing or education background. We look for people who are resourceful and reliable and we have three trainers including myself. We train our befrienders to work with homeless people and help them to settle into their permanent accommodation. This includes helping them deal with their personal and emotional concerns.

Training is quite expensive. It amounts to between £3000 and £5000, including travel expenses and the cost of the venue.

The training session includes practical advice on homelessness legislation, budgeting advice, how to access benefits and how to demonstrate resourcefulness and commitment. At the moment, we give three weekends a month of intensive training and we also look at the issues affecting the black communities in these sessions.

The estimated cost of providing the scheme for 2000/01 was £98,000. This included paying for a full-time project coordinator, a mentor/supervisor and day-to-day costs. Nottingham city council contributes £64,000 to the scheme; £27,000 comes from the European Social Fund; £2000 comes from Health Action Zone and £2250 comes from the private sector and other organisations. Longhurst Housing Association has also given us funds to recruit a further nine befrienders.

The scheme started in 2000 and since then, we have had 120 referrals from social services. We now have a waiting list so sometimes we get one befriender to work with a couple of the less needy people at once in order to meet demand.

We try to cultivate the idea of an extended family and enable people to have close relationships, but we don't want them to depend on their befrienders. We are always here for the people on the scheme but it is up to them to approach us for help.