A Derbyshire community project which helps homeless people rebuild their lives by teaching them skills for the workplace is planning to introduce a mentoring scheme and head into the countryside to get closer to nature after its funding was extended for two more years.
Growing Lives, which is run by Derventio Housing Trust, wants to appoint the mentors as part of a new drive to help newcomers to settle in when they arrive for their first day at its base in Grenville Drive, Cotmanhay.
Growing Lives runs a series of activities designed to help people who have found themselves homeless and are working hard to put their difficult times and life challenges, such as mental health issues, alcohol and substance addictions and domestic abuse, behind them.
They include crafts, woodworking, gardening and cooking, all of which give opportunities to participants that help them to learn new skills, get a sense of achievement and meet new people.
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From left, Growing Lives community project participant Danny, with workshop manager Vitor Azevedo and participant Wayne. The scheme, based in Cotmanhay, Derbyshire, has been extended for two more years, with mentors set to be recruited to help new starters settle in.
Growing Lives works with around 50 people each year but had to close its doors for a few months during the pandemic last year. It has now successfully applied to Derbyshire County Council, which has agreed to part fund it for the next two years to enable it to continue its work and extend its provision to cover the mentoring scheme, which will see current participants be offered training as part of a buddy system in order to help people who are new to Growing Lives while adding to their own skillset too.
It will also set up a new partnership with Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, where participants will travel out to locations such as Erewash Canal as part of a 12-week course where they will learn bushcraft, identify different species of birdss and trees and cook on open fires.
Kim Miles, support services and project lead for Growing Lives, said: “We’re delighted to have received the funding and we’re really excited about the prospect of our mentoring scheme and working with Derbyshire Wildlife Trust.
“We’re always looking for ways in which we can extend our provision and these new schemes will give Growing Lives more of a sustainable impact on the people we work with by giving them more skills to prepare them for the world of work.
“Working as buddies is a wonderful way for them to raise their own esteem and take on a different role, while the work with the Trust will widen their knowledge of the world and see them pick up new skills that they would not otherwise have had access to.”
Growing Lives gives participants the chance to learn new skills such as woodworking and meet new people – and is now getting them out and about to study wildlife along the Erewash Canal.
Among those helped by Growing Lives over the past year is Adam, who had very minimal contact with people prior to his involvement, with his only previous social interaction taking place at the pub.
As someone who had alcohol issues this was unhelpful, but lockdown reduced Adam to drinking at home alone, including regular binge drinking sessions during which he would spend the whole day in bed.
Since joining Growing Lives he has built up his confidence by spending one day a week in its craft room and is now more social. He is now planning to build his own bike in the bike workshop and looking forward to day he can ride it along the canal, while he has also cut down his drinking and is going outside to walk locally.
Jackie Carpenter, assistant director of Derventio Housing Trust, said: “Stories like Adam’s are a reminder of how Growing Lives is a very important part of our work at the Trust and it’s vital that it continues to develop the services that it provides to its participants.
“It was hugely missed when it was closed during the lockdown and so this new funding will ensure that we can continue to help all participants like Adam to recover from the isolation and loneliness that they suffered during the pandemic and work towards creating a better life for themselves in the future.”
