handlingcovid19

Handling Covid19 – Clean Break

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This week, we are shining the spotlight on Clean Break, a charity based in London. Clean Break uses theatre to keep the subject of women in prison on the cultural radar, helping to reveal the damage caused by the failures of the criminal justice system.


Clean Break is a women’s theatre company, founded in 1979 by two women prisoners who believed in the power of theatre to transform lives. Their vision is of a society where women can realise their full potential, free from criminalisation. Through theatre workshops and projects in prisons and the community which build confidence, resilience and wellbeing, Clean Break transforms the lives of women who have experienced the criminal justice system or have been identified as at risk of entering it. The team ordinarily work with 70 women each week as part of their weekly Members Programme. They have 10 full time and 11 part time staff and are usually supported by around 40 volunteers.

“We pursue our vision by producing ground-breaking theatre which puts women’s voices at its heart and creates lasting change by challenging injustice in and beyond the criminal justice system”

Photo Credit: Clean Break

The Members Programme is delivered from trauma-informed, women-only studios in Kentish Town. The Programme runs in ten-week sessions, and each week Clean Break will host workshops in Introduction to Drama, Advanced Theatre, Writers Circle, and Health & Wellbeing, as well as running a Young Artists Development Programme. The sessions are designed to help members cope with the long-term issues that can underpin women’s involvement in the criminal justice system, such as mental ill health, domestic abuse or violence, poverty, or alcohol or drug misuse.

The Coronavirus pandemic has meant that Clean Break has been forced to make some big changes to their programme delivery. They swiftly moved their sessions online and began to offer member support remotely. This was a challenge as many of their service users already struggle with isolation; and the crisis also presents challenges in coping with long-term issues. The sessions now include: 3 online creative workshops per week, members support in the form of check-ins, Zoom 1:1’s, and care packages, as well as new creative projects which foster connectivity and community. The plan is to maintain this service until the team are able to offer a reduced, in-person version of their Member Programme that they can run alongside their virtual workshops.

The biggest organisational challenge has been financial. Clean Break’s largest unrestricted income is hiring out their building (ordinarily generating £125K per year) which came to an abrupt halt in February. Other financial challenges have included the loss of donations as funders have diverted money to emergency delivery; a reduction in capacity as Clean Break have furloughed 76% of their staff; and loss of further trading income as they do not expect to be able to run training courses or earn box office income from theatre productions for a good while yet.

“Emergency funding support from both existing and new funders has been essential to navigate this crisis and stabilise our organisation; funders such as the Rank Foundation have been absolutely vital in protecting our resilience, securing our future, and making sure that we will be able to return to a full Members Programme as soon as possible.”

For more information about Clean Break, please visit www.cleanbreak.org.uk

You can also follow on Twitter @CleanBrk, Instagram @CleanBrk, Facebook, or find them on LinkedIn.

If you’d like to contact someone at Clean Break for more information about their work, or supporting them, please contact Head of Development and Communications Sally Muckley at sally.muckley@cleanbreak.org.uk

Handling Covid19 – Caritas Anchor House

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This week, we are shining the spotlight on Caritas Anchor House, a charity based in East London. Caritas Anchor House is a homelessness charity providing accommodation and life-skills support for single homeless adults

Caritas Anchor House provides a home and support for people experiencing homelessness in Newham. The borough has the highest levels of homelessness in the country, and there is more demand for their services than ever before. They have 140 bed spaces, and in 2019 the team of around 50 staff supported 287 people to move on from homelessness.

On a usual week, the charity supports its residents to address the causes of their homelessness, and to overcome any barriers they may face by providing health and wellbeing support, education, employability and volunteering opportunities, and help to move on to their next chapters.

However, during the pandemic and lockdown the team have found themselves in an extraordinary times, having to adapt their work in all sorts of ways in order to keep the residents and staff safe. The London Borough of Newham has had the highest Covid19 mortality rate in the country, but only a very small number of residents reported minor symptoms.When we spoke to the team, they explained that they had been so heartened by the wonderful support they have received but it had certainly not been a smooth ride. They supported residents who had to self-isolate and provided PPE as well as information regarding guidance on hygiene and social distancing. As a supported housing provider, many of the facilities (such as the residents loung, kitchen, dining room and laundry) are shared between 140 people, however these spaces had to be restricted to minimise risk.

When we asked the team how the residents had responded to these measures, they said:

“Residents have been really co-operative and understand that their actions save lives by minimising risk of infection spreading. There is a strong sense of community at Caritas Anchor House and our residents find strength from their peers, but they recognise that these steps have been essential.”

Sadly, a number of the residents at Anchor House lost their jobs due to lockdown, so the team supported them to manage their finances and prepare them for returning to, and securing, work opportunities. Other residents experienced a deterioration in mental health due to the unprecedented circumstances, therefore the team needed to increase the level of wellbeing support they could give.

A big barrier for Caritas Anchor House was the fact they were unable to support residents to move on from their service. However, as lockdown has eased, the team has prioritised supporting those who are ready to do so. In an attempt to knock down some of the barriers, the team have had to look at other ways of delivering support: “We’ve seen the benefits of moving towards telephone support, and have been able to catch up on resident’s progress more frequently – and it’s something we will likely continue.”

As lockdown eases, the team at Caritas Anchor House are striving to get back to full service delivery whilst making the appropriate adjustments to their work. To keep up to date with their progress you can visit their website at www.caritasanchorhouse.org.uk.

If you would like to contact Caritas Anchor House you can reach them at info@caritasanchorhouse.org.uk or 020 7476 6062.

You can also follow Caritas Anchor House on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with their latest news.

Handling Covid19 – Real Ideas Organisation

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This week, we are shining the spotlight on Real Ideas Organisation (RIO), a charity based in south west England. RIO focus their work on solving problems and creating opportunities for people, communities and organisations.

RIO has a team of 60 who suupport thousands of individuals every year through a range of events and experiences, coaching, mentoring, business support and consultancy. They are clearly a very diverse organisation, and during ‘usual’ operations they can be doing anything from reimagining new futures for old buildings to supporting young people to take positive steps towards work, education or training…and everything and anything in between! We asked them to give us an idea of an average week, to which we were answered “there’s no such thing as a typical week for the team at Real Ideas!”.

Before the Coronavirus pandemic they had been running a series of support sessions to mentor and coach young people to develop the skills they need to move forward with their lives, whilst also working with Plymouth City Council to involve more people in making decisions about green spaces and parks. At the same time they were operating three buildings, running them as co-work spaces with shared business, creative and making facilities and running events from these spaces. They are used to diverse working and following the needs and requirements of their community.

We asked the team about how the pandemic has affected their working conditions and routines, to which they said:

“Fortunately, many our staff are used to remote working, so whilst a bit of a culture shock not to see each other in person, it has been a relatively easy transition from office to home working. It was our customer facing delivery that we were most concerned about. Much of what we do involves being in a room with participants – supporting people, working in schools, running buildings with live events programmes – relies on face to face contact, so lockdown brought immediate and fundamental changes to how we work with the people we support.”

Much like most of the charities in our network, RIO moved their service delivery online. Within days of lockdown being announced RIO had scoped out, tested and set up a digital platform which enabled them to deliver online meetings and events. Since then, they have delivered more than 50 online sessions and supported over 1,000 people including 400 vulnerable young people. This can only be counted as a success; more than 650 people attended one of their online webinars and 400 young people are continuing on their employability programme. The team said “in fact, engagement with young people on our programmes has increased during lockdown”.

We asked RIO what the biggest challenge had been so far in terms of service delivery and they explained that digital disadvantage has resulted in some users being unable to access assistance, support and learning opportunities: “We started to get concerned that some of the most vulnerable were being hardest hit due to lack of connectivity or kit – without access to the internet they couldn’t access assistance from health professionals, support from foodbanks or learning activities set by schools”.  In response to this, the worked with funders and partners to distribute smart phones, tablets and wifi dongles to those who struggled with internet access. They also opened up their buildings so that those who needed to use PCs or complete essential paperwork such as Universal Credit applications had somewhere to go.

If you would like to find out more about RIO, you can visit their website at: www.realideas.org

Email them at info@realideas.org or give them a call at 0330 223 4158

Handling Covid19 – Street Factory

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This week we are spotlighting the fantastic work of Street Factory, a Plymouth-based Hip Hop Social Collective.

Street Factory has been known to the Foundation since 2018 as one of the 8 original Place-Based funded organisations in Plymouth. Since then, they have performed at our annual conference and grown as an organisation.

We spoke to Jo Gorniak, co-founder and Director at Street Factory, who runs the CIC with her husband Toby.

Founded in 2007, Street Factory’s tagline is “Transforming lives, so they exceed their potential and fall in love with their purpose!”. Over the past 13 years, Jo and Toby have been offering street dance and hip-hop classes to children and young adults, often subsedising or sponsoring those who are unable to pay full fees. They also host over 18 dance groups and have created a mentoring environment and a caring community ‘hub’. This means they are much more than a dance studio – the Street Factory team get to know their service users and offer emotional supportm promoting peace, fun, love and unity.

In a ‘usual’ week, Jo and Toby would be delivering their sessions from their Plymouth theatre to over 300 service users, as well as working with their hip-hop outreach team in schools, training programmes and other nationwide projects.

However, when the Covid19 pandemic broke out and lockdown set in, Street Factory were unable to deliver their usual classes and workshops, meaning the team have had to think innovatively about how to adapt to the restrictions. Jo, Toby and the team have been quick to act, immediately turning to digital means in order to stay connected and to support their 300+ local community service users. They have been offering daily (sometimes hourly) community support, and have been running hip-hop lessons digitally from their living room. Due to the isolation and loneliness of lockdown, they are needed now more than ever.

Street Factory creates change that empowers their service users of all ages, races and experience the chance to unlock their own potential, despite facing a range of social and economic challenges.

If you would like more information about Street Factory CIC, you can:
Visit their Facebook page
Visit their Youtube Channel
Drop them an email at streetfactorystudios@hotmail.com

Handling Covid19 – Why Me?

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Why me? are the only national charity fighting for victims of crime to have access to Restorative Justice. Restorative Justice empowers victims of crime to communicate with the offender, through a face to face meeting where appropriate. This gives them the chance to talk about the impact of the crime, seek answers about why it happened and have their voices heard. Many victims of crime feel excluded, confused and revictimized by the criminal justice process. Restorative Justice can change this.

We spoke to the team at Why me? about the changes and adaptations to service delivery due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

Why me? has been known to the Foundation since 2017 when they first received a 3 year Major Grant to fund a new Business Development Manager role. As an organisation, they have been engaged and active RankNet members ever since.

Why me?’s work focuses on two key areas. One is providing Restorative Justice, which they do through their own Restorative Justice service. Anyone is free to get in touch to explore whether a restorative process is best for them and if Why me? are best placed to facilitate it. Their work also focuses on campaigning for the greater use of Restorative Justice. This strand of their work includes policy development, lobbying Government, spreading best practice, engaging with the Restorative Justice sector and helping to perfect the use of restorative practices for under-used crime types: such as hate crime. They have seven hard working, part time staff and a dedicated team of trustees, restorative facilitators and ambassadors who have lived experience of being victims of crime.

During lockdown, Why me? have prioritised communication within the Restorative Justice sector highly. They now send out a weekly newsletter, and hold forums on different issues for people working in Restorative Justice to attend. These include Why me?’s regular forums but also one-off forums on important subjects, such as an upcoming Restorative Listening forum for BAME people to talk about racism they have experienced from the police and justice system. These events are all part of a growing online “Restorative Hub” which Why me? are seeking to develop, with the help of funding from the Rank Foundation.

We asked the team about the challenges they have faced during this difficult period. They explained:

“One of our key aims is to influence policy makers, and this is difficult during a time when the Government have so many urgent priorities. Restorative practice has a part to play in a number of problems facing the country: it could help to address the backlog in the courts, guide the police on how to carefully police new COVID laws, and be part of the healing process as the country returns to health. But our ability to have these representations heard is diminished at the moment, due to the focus on the emergency response to the pandemic. We have also had financial struggles during this period, like most small charities, but we are doing everything we can to overcome them.”

However, it would appear that the service users at Why me? have responded well, and the organisation said they were heartened by how restorative providers around the country have engaged with their online forums. Aided by Why me?’s ability to share best practice, restorative services across the country have learned to operate remotely, giving victims of crime the opportunity to engage remotely in Restorative Justice if they wish to. Some participants have been keen to continue with their restorative processes remotely, while others have preferred to wait until face to face meetings are possible again.

If you would like to contact the team at Why me? for more information, you can email them at: info@why-me.org.uk

Website: www.why-me.org
Twitter: @WhyMeUK

Handling Covid19 – The Circle Dundee

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The Circle is a “More Than Profit” organisation based in Dundee and is focused on working with social entrepreneurs, community activists, charity leaders, commercial business leaders, trustees and non-executive directors. The Circle is a hub for charities, social enterprises, community groups and socially aware businesses in Dundee. They provide affordable offices, co-working and community space, as well as affordable meeting and event spaces.

We spoke to The Circle’s Founder and CEO, Kirsty Thomson on how the charity is adapting to the challenges of Covid19.

In a usual week, The Circle are based in a thriving community hub in a large 1970’s building right in the heart of the community. They are usually offering 5 main services: affordable office space, event space, consultancy services, The Circle Café and The Circle Academy. They currently have a team of 13 staff and has 15 tenant organisations within the hub. The building usually sees up to 700 sign-ins every week which includes tenants, volunteers, service users and visitors attending meetings or events in our spaces. Kirsty explained “we have a wide variety of tenants and host events on almost a daily basis and as such, we don’t  have too many ‘normal’ days – we’ve been known to turn our hand at becoming renovators, delivery drivers, wifi experts, and even emptying flooded drains with buckets!”

However with the lockdown in full force due to the Coronavirus pandemic, The Circle have been working to adapt how they work in order to continue supporting their tenants and other clients. They were in the midst of delivering their ‘Circle Academy‘ to their second cohort of candidates when the programme had to be swiftly changed to be offered digitally.  The team has also been offering free one-to-one consultancy sessions and will be running a series of webinars during June and July for people in the third sector.

Kirsty explained that one of the hardest parts has been not being able to run their café, and being unable to see their volunteers and regular visitors who access the services of their hub tenants. However, the team have been keeping the spirit and social culture of The Circle alive and their daily team lunches have become daily team catch up calls and Friday evening quizzes.

So what next? The team at The Circle are busy planning for the next cohort of The Circle Academy and trying to find ways to get their café back up and running. They are also continuing to support the local community through The Circle Superstars, a new initiative to be launched this summer supported by the Wellbeing Fund to support children and young people in the local community. Kirsty told us “the biggest challenge for us during this period is making sure everyone is well and supported through a time that is undoubtedly posing emotional, health and financial challenges for our staff, volunteers, tenants and service users.”

You can access more information about The Circle at www.thecircledundee.org.uk

You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @thecircledundee and on Linkedin. RankNet members can find Kirsty Thomson and the current Time to Shine Leader, Alice Watts on our online community platform members directory.

For any specific enquiries, please email reception@thecircledundee.org.uk