A grant award of £20,000 from the London Housing Foundation is being used by the youth homelessness charity Centrepoint to fund a project to help families and reduce homelessness.
The Family Mediation and Reparation Pilot Project, based in Centrepoint’s Lewisham Assessment Centre, is aimed at improving family relationships and the relationship skills of young people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. The project will help families and young people before problems escalate, preventing future homelessness and saving public money.
Centrepoint employ a full time, accredited Family Mediation worker to provide family mediation and reparation services to young people and families in the borough.
Robynne Easterbrook, a Centrepoint Family Mediation Co-ordinator said: “Family mediation provides young people with a unique opportunity to rebuild relationships in a safe and secure environment. Centrepoint’s Lewisham service will support young people both pre and post homelessness to understand relational dynamics, build sustainable networks of support and promote long-term resilience. Mediation and reparation offer young people an environment to explore feelings, ideals and reflect on their own values”.
Margaret Malcolm, Acting Operations Manager of LHF said “This is an excellent project and we are very pleased to be working with Centrepoint. We wanted to fund this pilot scheme as preventing homelessness is so much better than dealing with its consequences.”
If you have a project or idea that you think is worth funding, go to our grants page, or give us a ring.