MONITOR CHARITY
Supporting‘ A New Future’ IT Training for Residents
T he Nehemiah Project is a small charity in South London providing residential support to vulnerable men who have been marginalised as the result of addiction which has severely affected them, their families and the wider community. Our residents invariably report a history of multiple hardship and dysfunctional childhoods, mostly including care, abuse, domestic violence and other forms of familial dysfunction.
The Nehemiah Project runs a CBT-based programme that enables these men to break the cycle of addiction and consider the alternatives to homelessness and / or crime, and throughout the programme we provide the professional and life changing-support necessary to secure a new future. We equip our residents to change their lives and overcome opposition to that change.
At Nehemiah, 62 % of residents remain free from addiction, far exceeding the national average for remaining abstinent for a year( 30 %). As far as we know, only 5 % of the men we have worked with in the last 5 years have re-offended. In comparison, nearly 50 % of released prisoners UK-wide re-offend within 12 months. In London this figure increases to 60 %.
We achieve these results through our quality Supported Housing Programme, comprising two stages: A New Future and Move-on. In 2015, we worked with a total of 34 men, of these:
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� 29 came to us through-the-gate from prison
� 5 had been rough-sleeping
� All 34 report to have some kind of addiction
The WCIT Charity awarded us pro-bono IT support and a grant of £ 2,500 in 2015 for the purchase of computers to aid our Residents in their preparation for new lives free of addiction.
These computers are situated in the dining room, where the men use them for study, recreation and communication with friends and family. The provision of computers and internet access necessitated the introduction of a Computer and Email policy for our Residents, to help them understand the implications of social media and downloading, amongst other things. Many of the men we work with have had very little experience with using a computer, and have to start with the basics of how to log on, create an email account and how to create and save documents.
Every course of‘ A New Future’ IT training includes two sessions on looking for work, cv-writing and interviews. The January-April cohort of men were assisted in CV writing by a group of students from Enactus, and it made a huge difference to this group to be able to have personal time on the computers with each student. An unexpected use of the computers is Skype, which the men use to speak to family members in other parts of the UK, and abroad. This has proved very useful in reinforcing our Families Programme, where we seek to
reconcile residents with their families, and particularly estranged children.
Using these computers, one of our men VR, registered for the Prudential Ride London-Surrey 100, drafted his own poster and flyer, and set up a JustGiving page. VR completed the ride on 31st July and raised £ 1,000 for Nehemiah.
VR explained:“ The Nehemiah Project gives great potential for self-development because it’ s make or break yourself right there and then and it’ s not just the first day you get here, it’ s every day you’ re left with your own life in your own hands.
The Nehemiah is the only thing that’ s worked. I’ m 49, I’ ve been using drugs since the age of fourteen but now I have been fourteen months clean.”
Of the 34 residents, 20 men engaged with the programme:
� 9 successfully graduated from Stage One and moved into Stage Two
� 7 moved-on positively from A New Future
� 4 are still residents of The Nehemiah Project.
The computers continue to be an invaluable resource for the men, from providing an educational platform in sessions of A New Future, to music while they clean the house, contact with families, and access to job-seeking websites. All of these functions contribute to strengthening the men’ s recovery and making their future goals of independent living and employment more sustainable.
The majority of the men we work with feel that they would have re-offended had they not come to Nehemiah, so thank you to all the donors to the WCIT Charity, who have helped enable this step-change in the lives of the residents within the Nehemiah Project.
Contributed by Lorna Hawthorne, Fundraising Manager, The Nehemiah Project