Recovery programme

The longer you stay on the streets, the more detrimental the impact on your health, relationships, confidence, trust in people, sense of safety, and aspirations and hopes for the future. Your world shrinks, your focus becomes survival. As time goes by, the more likely a person is to develop multiple and complex support needs around mental health, trauma and substance misuse, and to worsen existing issues.

People can find it progressively more difficult to trust any services. This can leave them stuck with little or no support, leading highly damaging lives. The challenge is to re-engage and connect with such people, so they can begin to journey away from homelessness.

The recovery programme at The Connection at St Martin’s, a large day centre in Westminster, offers a wide range of group activities that supports people’s recovery from street homelessness by re-building trust with people. From gardening, art and music therapy, to photography and creative writing, group activities help people to build resilience, confidence, life skills and social capital. Group activities can lead to empowerment, well-being, and hope for a better future, reducing isolation and helping people to develop healthy relationships with others.

The programme - with its ‘open to all’ ethos and diverse range of activities - offers a safe, flexible, non-judgemental and supportive space where trust can develop and grow at a pace that suits individuals. The groups act as a stepping-stone for people to feel ready and motivated to move forward and make changes in their lives.

Taking part in such a group may seem like a small step in the grand scheme of things, but they often have a vital part to play in someone’s move away from the streets, into a home and back into work.