In this episode of the Rural Homelessness Podcast, host Matt McChlery discusses the various aspects of working in the homelessness sector with guests Christine Munday and Emma Webb from The Ferry Project. They share their personal journeys into the field, explore the diverse roles available within the sector, and highlight the innovative services and support offered to clients. The conversation also addresses the challenges faced by workers in this field and the rewarding experiences that come from helping individuals in need. The episode concludes with encouragement for those interested in pursuing a career in homelessness support.

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Transcription

Intro

This is the Rural Homelessness Podcast, where we discuss the important issues around rural homelessness, hear from those affected by it, and offer some solutions. Brought to you by the award-winning homelessness charity, The Ferry Project. Welcome to the Rural Homelessness Podcast.

 

Matt McChlery (Host)

Well hello and welcome to this episode of the Rural Homelessness Podcast. As always, it is so great that you have clicked over here and joined us today. My name is Matt McChlery and I am the host of this fabulous podcast. Before I introduce our guests, I just wanted to let you know that you can now subscribe to an email newsletter that will let you know all about our podcast and when the next episode is coming out and all of those wonderful things. Just head over to our website ferryproject.org.uk and go to the contact page and then click on the button that allows you to subscribe to our email newsletter.

Now, having said that, let us get on with today's episode. So today I am talking all things employment, working in the homelessness sector, what it's like, how you get started, and all the different roles that are available in a homelessness charity. So I'm talking today with Christine Munday, who is the administration manager at The Ferry Project, and I'm also speaking with Emma Webb, who is the support and employment manager. So let's welcome them to the show.

So let's welcome Christine and Emma to the podcast. Hi, Christine.

 

Christine

Hi Matt.

 

Matt

Hi Emma.

 

Emma

Hi Matt, how are you?

 

Matt

I'm good thanks. Thanks for joining us today on the Rural Homelessness podcast. It's really great to have you with us. Now today we are going to be talking about employment or working within the homelessness sector. Now I know both of you have some interesting stories. So what first made you think of working in the homelessness sector? How did you know that this was something for you, Christine?

 

Christine

For me, Matt, working with people has always been something that I've been interested in and giving back to those that are less fortunate. So I think that's really one of the main reasons why I like working for the Ferry Project.

 

Matt

Hmm, Emma?

 

Emma

Yes, mine was slightly on a personal level. So I think from when I was in my teenage years, we had a family death. We were quite shielded, shall we say, from homelessness and addiction. And we had a death in the family for addiction and drug use. So to see the impacts that it had on family. And I think the funeral was quite telling for me at such a young age to sit and observe that. And I suppose I was curious of… there is more to life than this shielded world that my parents kind of put us in. So for me, it was more of an intriguing thing of what's available, what's out there and what's actually happening.

 

Matt

So how did you start getting into working in the homelessness sector, Christine?

 

Christine

So for me, Matt, I think I left school before my year of school was due to end and I didn't really know what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go in life. So for me it was kind of, I was starting a journey of actually what is it that I want to do for the rest of my career. So I joined a work placement through the Jobcentre and I was put on to a work experience trial. I was carrying out some work experience within the admin field and I obviously struggle with transport. So I used to get a bus, public transport, over to March every day. And that became a little bit of an issue in the winter. So buses were often quite late or early and you'd miss the bus. Obviously in the winter it's very cold and you used to have to hang around for quite some time. It was quite wet. So the lady who I worked for, she said, I know this man called Keith Smith and he works for a homelessness charity called The Ferry Project in Wisbech. Why don't we see whether we can get your placement swapped over and you continue and you finish your placement working at The Ferry Project. So I thought, yeah, that's very interesting. I've heard lots of things about The Ferry Project. I'm a Wisbech girl. I know of The Ferry Project. And back then in 2010, The Ferry Project had just moved into Octavia View, so was a brand new building from the previous premises down at Mill Close. And I came along and I had a meeting with Keith and I was just thinking, wow, what an amazing charity this is, what a lovely building that they've got for the clients. So I finished my placement working on reception, I was doing general reception duties, answering the telephone, helping the clients, customers coming into the building. And then I left. I then got a telephone call probably three months later to say that there was some casual work going on a zero hour contract, was I interested in picking that up? So I thought, yeah, why not? I love what the Ferry Project stands for, I love what the charity is about. I wasn't in employment back then, so I came along for an interview, interviewed for the role and I got the position. Of course, you know, we're now 2024. I've been here for 14 years. I've had various different jobs throughout my journey here. I've learned a lot. And yeah, I think it's very exciting. And I appreciate so much more in life now because I've seen that, you know, there's people that don't have anything and they're happy. And I think sometimes we take for granted what we have.

 

Matt

Really interesting. Thank you for sharing that Christine. As the administration manager, still sort of in the realms of admin, but yes, now leading the team, is fantastic. Emma, what was your journey into employment in the homelessness sector like?

 

Emma

Yeah, mine's quite boring compared to Christine's. But it was interesting, isn't it, how people's journeys are different. So for me, I was working in the community as a carer and then I had my son. So I'd been on maternity leave. I was aware of The Ferry Project because I'd been doing some care work for one of their clients at that time and they had a part-time cleaner role come up. So for me at that time, it was a way of getting into the homelessness sector, following on from the personal bereavement that I had. So, I started off as a cleaner in 2008, again, part-time, and it kind of just went from there really, to see, you know, there's always extra shifts that needed picking up. And so gradually over time, I went from a cleaner to a support worker to a night worker, to a key work… sorry, a key worker, a team leader, activities. So I kind of really worked my way through employment with homelessness. But it was kind of, the journey was kind of mine in what area and what field I wanted to go to really. And there was so many opportunities that was put my way. So I was able to upskill myself and to progress within my employment. And yeah, 2024. So 17 years later and I'm now the support and employment manager. And I oversee the whole of the HRS contracts. So yeah, that's my journey.

 

Matt

Yeah, no, that's great. And you mentioned in there lots of different roles. You kind of just reel them off, which is great, because you've been there and you've done all of that. But I think it might be interesting for our listeners if we kind of look at some of these different roles that exist within the homelessness sector, because I think sometimes people think, homelessness sector, I either have to be a counselor or, you know, I have to be someone who knows about rehab and then, you know, that's it. But there's so many different roles that exist within just our charity. So Christine, what kind of roles sort of in the admin side? Let's start there, because it's your area mostly that you deal with. What different roles do people have? So admin, so there's someone who fills in paperwork, I presume.

 

Christine

Yeah, so the types of roles within the admin field. So we have somebody who would deal with, let's say, the housing benefit forms, so processing those to the local authority. We would obviously have somebody on reception, so front of house answering the main reception telephone line, dealing with customers, front-facing customers, dealing with rent payments and all of those types of things. We do also have somebody within the admin area who looks after the health and safety side of the buildings across all of our Ferry Project sites as well. And then for the Queen Mary Centre, which is another part of our services that we provide, we would have somebody over there looking after the customers that go into the Queen Mary Centre, answering their main reception phone line, dealing with room bookings. Yeah, so it's very varied.

 

Matt

And the Queen Mary Centre, just for our listeners, if they don't know, is a community centre that we have to run as well.

 

Christine

One of the other things that we have, Matt, is we have somebody looking after, as you well know, our social media for all of our Ferry Project sites. So that includes the work that we're doing in the cookery school, that includes the Queen Mary Centre and obviously all of our support services. So we've got Octavia View, we've got our properties in March and our external accommodation.

 

Matt

So Emma, coming back to you then, you've done all sorts of things. Tell us a bit more about the sort of, the support work and the key work and what is that?

 

Emma

Yes, so I think for any roles within the homelessness sector, they're all vital, so they're all really important roles. So admin is a really big role that supports our daily functions, you know, the social media. So it doesn't matter what role you play in any of the, you know, homelessness sector, they're all very important. So they all have, the ultimate aim, Matt, is that we save and change people's lives. But how we get there is different. Not any one client's journey is the same in the sense of how they get there could be completely different to someone else. So all of our roles are bespoke to different clientele's of, you know, it could be addiction, it could be gambling, it could be family. So anyone that's employed in the homelessness sector, empathy and, you know, life experiences is pretty key. It goes a really long way. So we have support workers. Support workers, they support clients in, you know, do they need attending to go to the GP? Do they need support in actually going into town to collect a prescription? Do they… so if someone's got anxiety or, you know, they're quite fearful of going out, you know, alone as such, our support workers can support them with anything really. So we have to… it's a really unique relationship in the sense of we're there to guide and we're there to help them. For our key workers, they interview, they risk assess. So, you know, we work with the criminal justice system, we work with offenders, we work with mental health. Again, it could be a range of support needs. So for the key workers, they do a lot of risk assessing because we're communal living and we're a big part of the community, we have to ensure that risk is managed. So a big part of their role is managing risk. We also work on an outcome star, it's assessing daily living skills, you know, managing money. So again, it's bespoking any support around that individual. So all staff have to adapt to each client. They look at rents, they support with, you know, some people struggle with how to iron a shirt, how to… So although we have different job titles, they all kind of merge into one depending on that individual and that clientele. Key workers do hold a caseload of clients and that can vary from four to eight. So they actually have a caseload and the support worker supports the key worker and the client to enable for that journey to begin as such. So again, it's variety. We hold a lot of activities, so one of our client key workers, sorry, they lead on activities. So it's a meaningful use of time. Boredom is a really big thing within the homelessness sector. They struggle financially, they struggle to integrate at times. So we try and bring as much fun as possible to Ferry and put on all different activities. We do barbecues, we do DVD nights. So there's a variety of activities that they do. So it's all the roles merge into one, but they're all specialised in their own individual way.

 

Matt

And then something else that we touched on in some of the previous episodes of the Rural Homelessness podcast is the fact that we are rural and that we don't really have that much access to all sorts of other amazing services to signpost people. It would be great to do that, but we kind of have to be a catchall sometimes for some of those other services where if we were in a city, we could just simply refer people to somewhere else. We can't do that necessarily. So I suppose, yes, there is referring that goes on, but then there's also stuff that we continue to do internally as such. So we've got like counselors and things that we bring in, isn't that right? We've got the cookery school, cooking skills. Have I missed anything? Do we have any other things like that that we've kind of had to bring in because we couldn't send people out?

 

Emma

Yeah, so I think one of the real positives about Ferry Project at the moment, think, through the years of experience and bespoke support plans, you know, we're not paramedics, we're not the police, we're not mental health workers, but actually for us to deliver the appropriate service to a range of clients, we need all of those. And that can be counselling, that can be mental health, it could be the health service, it could be the GP. So over the last certainly five years, we tried to bring that to Ferry Project. And I have to say in the 17 years I've worked here, it's happening and it's working. And I smirk as I say that because it's quite exciting because some time ago it was a real big missing link. So once a week now we have North Brink practice in Wisbech, they come to us. So for our clients to walk into a GP surgery is a really big thing. They feel that they're judged, it could be their appearance, they might not have had a shower. So to have that service come to us is just a massive support to our clients. The nurse practitioner, she can prescribe, she can diagnose, she can make referrals, but it's all in the comfort of their own safe home and that safe environment. But we also have an in-house counsellor. She is just amazing. Again, another service that we just didn't have access to. At one stage, I think just before COVID, there was a 52 week wait for counselling. You know, if we're looking at recovery in a client's journey, we're just moving problems on sometimes because there was always that missing gap. So to be able to employ a counselor has again just made so much difference to our clients. They're actually able to move on with new coping mechanisms or new skills, whereas before we never had that. So we are trying to bring a lot more to our clients rather than reaching out because it's just really difficult with it being rural. We are quite lucky we work closely with the police and the health services. Fenland District Council, we work closely with them. So yeah, we are trying to bring all services here and it appears to be working really well.

 

Matt

And you've got the cookery school that's starting to take off, not just for clients, which obviously is its primary role, but also helping to reach out into the community as well and help sort of bring education about cooking and healthy eating things further afield and not just clients.  And smoking cessation as well. That's something really new. Can you tell us a bit about that?

 

Emma

Yeah, so we were… yeah, just to add Matt, sorry, on the cookery school for, you know, some of our clients that, you know, whether they've been in prison, whether, you know, they've they've been in hospital, it could be a number of reasons. Some people don't know how to cook, and you know, it's, it's…

 

Matt

It can become a barrier, can't it?

 

Emma

Yes.

 

Matt

It can become something that you have to try and face up to when it reaches that point, doesn't it?

 

Emma

Absolutely. So our cookery school enables our clients to have one-to-one sessions in how to prep a meal, how to cook a meal. So there's just a variety of things that the cookery school can, you know, guide and give to our clients that they've never known. So that's working really, really well and that's enabling us to move our clients on to more independent living, so they can plan and cook and budget for a meal. And yes, you're right, we now have this smoking cessation role here at The Ferry Project. That is relatively new and the aim of this project is to try and work with the more… it's basically focused more around the homelessness to stop smoking. So it's a two year project to try and get people to stop smoking. There's lots of rewards to that. There's one-to-one bespoke support sessions again. And it's just trying to cut down gradually, and then, you know, people's exit strategies might be vaping or it might be, you know, going to the gym and trying to quit smoking. So, as you say, it is relatively a new role, but it's certainly proven to be a success at present.

 

Matt

So Christine, what can you tell us about the employment services that we offer? Because that's yet another kind of strand to the bow of what Ferry Project is able to offer to clients and even possibly the wider community.

 

Christine

Our employment service team, they offer a wide range of employment opportunities to our clients. We have in the past had funding where we've delivered job cafes, job fairs, and we offered this to our external clients as well. We are waiting at the moment to find out whether we've secured some funding to deliver this in the future. But one of the things that we currently do is we provide employment services to our clients. So we work with the local colleges, we have people come in to deliver maths and English courses to our clients, help with their CVs to upskill them. We can look at putting them on different courses to help them find employment for the future. So there's lots of different things that we do within the employment service. We also have under that umbrella, we also have a donations hub, which our clients are encouraged to get involved with and maybe gain work experience from that as well.

 

Matt

I think Emma's got a few more things to tell us about donations hub, is that right Emma?

 

Emma

Yeah, so again the donations hub has kind of evolved into this real successful supportive donations hub really. So, absolutely as Christine was saying, it offers work experience and volunteering. The volunteering that has increased since the donation hub has been up and running, it's just been lovely to see. So we rely heavily on externals for donations, the public have been really generous. And what that enables us to do is support our clients when they move on. So when clients move on, they often have nothing. So they don't have any furniture, they have no kitchenware, no bedroom furniture. So actually they get a property but nothing to go into it. Now what our donations have been able to do certainly over the last four months is support clients with that. So I would say in the last six weeks, we've certainly supported seven people in fully furnishing their properties to support them in moving forward. Because again, it's another barrier that they don't have a settee, they don't have a bed. So that's been a real success of present. We also have a lot of donations from, we work with Greggs locally, they donate seven days a week. That gets shared amongst our clients. So every evening they have a share of, you know, hot sausage rolls, pastries, you know, sandwiches, cakes. So again, that is a real positive donation that we receive. We work with Aldi's, Lidl's, Greencore in particular locally. Every Friday they donate a massive ready meals to our clientele. And again, it is gratefully received. So the donation hub is just, you know, over the last few months is just become quite an important part of what Ferry Project does. Only last week we supported someone fleeing domestic violence. You know, they've been relocated, and they had nothing again. Again, we were lucky and able to support that and be able to supply that furniture, the food. So yeah, it's proven a success.

 

Matt

That's really good. And you mentioned when you were just giving the explanation about volunteers. Now, are those volunteers purely sort of clients within The Ferry Project that can volunteer to help out, or do you also accept, sort of, volunteers from sort of the wider general public of people who want to help out or maybe want to start getting involved or find out more about the homelessness sector? How does it work volunteering?

 

Emma

Yeah, so I say back in the day, so prior to Covid, I think we can all agree that Covid changed a lot of things, didn't it? Prior to Covid, we spent a lot of time and volunteering was a big part of The Ferry Project. I think whether it's staff or clients, in some way shape or form, that's where a lot of us started our journey here. So it was really key to Ferry Project. And then obviously COVID come along and change that. But we had a massive work experience programme. It was supported by the Jobcentre, it was supported by the local mental health team, the Fenland District Council, and we were having 50, 60 volunteers per week. But as I say, unfortunately, that stopped due to COVID. So we're slowly but surely getting the volunteers back up and running. We started again internally about four or five months ago, and it was purely internally. However, we are now accepting externals as well. And literally we just asked that an email was sent to the Octavia admin email address, and they will pass that over to the donations worker and he will make contact. But I think at present we've got about six volunteers working in the donations hub.

 

Matt

That's great. And you can find that email address on the Ferry Project website and there's a link to the website in this episode's show notes. So if you're interested in volunteering, just click over there and send us an email. So coming back to you guys and your personal journey again then, what have been some of your biggest challenges?

 

Christine

I think personally for me, Matt, within my role is finding the right candidate for the roles here. And I say that because I think a lot of the work, particularly in support, I think it's a very unique role. And I think some people struggle with that side of things, and sometimes finding the right person who actually can do the role itself as being maybe a key worker or a support worker can be quite challenging. If you look at a different role, so an admin role or a maintenance role, those are, you know, very, very generic. And I mean this, they're quite generic roles. They don't have too much interaction with the clients. The support workers deal with some quite challenging things, and that obviously has an impact on them as people as well. So I think that's quite a challenge at times.

 

Matt

So even if you're not, if you don't feel that you're a person that has maybe some of those skills to be a key worker but you know how to, I don't know, change a light bulb or put a new pane of glass in a window or repaint a door or whatever, you could get involved in the maintenance team rather than going for something that is a lot more emotionally demanding perhaps.

 

Christine

Absolutely. I think this to work at the Ferry Project, as long as you have got compassion in you and the want and the willingness to help and like Emma said earlier, change people's lives, you could find a role here.

 

Matt

Emma, what have been some of your biggest challenges?

 

Emma

Yeah, I think quite similar. It's difficult Matt, isn't it? I think, you know, our aim is to save and change people's lives. But it's… not everyone's ready. So that can be for me the most challenging. And in a way you kind of watch some people self sabotage and some people have been through so much trauma, and we're not mental health workers, we're not a paramedic, we're not a doctor. So we can't instantly change people's lives. So that journey and the ups and downs can be very challenging. And I think for me, it's difficult for the clients are so judged, the Ferry Project defined at times is certainly a lot better now, but there's so much stigma around homelessness or you know, the Ferry Project with homeless people, they're still human beings and you know, they just need a bit of guidance and someone to help them. So it's, there can be quite a few challenges in that sense, but we're certainly here to help, you know, when people are ready. And if it's not their time, you know, it's certainly not a no, you know, but it does have to be that time. Yeah, I suppose that's one of my challenges.

 

Matt

Yeah, that's great. So the flip side of that coin then, what have been some of your highlights? What would be your best bits?

 

Emma

Yeah, so for me to see, to watch my staff grow and learn and support. So a big thing for me is my staff team. You know, it can be very challenging and wrong. You know, we deal with some really, really life changing events at times and that's nowhere in the job description. So that aftercare and that support for me is… I find that really rewarding. And also for the clients, you know, to see they arrive on one day, you know, needing support or help or even if it's somewhere just to stay, and to see them leave a completely different person and nine times out of ten with a key to their own property or they're moving on to that next step in their life, that's always a real reward. And I find that just a real success really.

 

Matt

That's great. Christine, how about you? What have been some of your highlights?

 

Christine

Yeah, I think I'm going to echo what Emma's just mentioned. I think being on main reception, the admin team are quite often one of the first people to meet the clients when they come in. You know, sometimes they come in and all they've got is what they're standing in and they've got nothing. So I think sometimes, you know, looking at their journey of, you know, where they've started from to finally being able to see them move on to their own home is an incredible journey. And we're quite lucky that we can be a part of that. And I also think seeing the staff team grow as well. So obviously when we recruit people, they often start in one role and then, you know, as we all have, they further their career within the Ferry Project and seeing them go through a similar sort of stage, you know, like I have myself within my roles, I think is a lovely journey to watch.

 

Matt

That's great. And would you recommend someone looking into working in the homelessness sector? And if so, why?

 

Christine

Yeah, I think working in the homelessness sector is very important. I think there's lots of people out there who need our help, and if you are a person that wants to change, you know, help people grow, help people get back onto the right path, give them life experience that you've gone through, give them reassurance, give them hope, give them, you know… kindness I think is very important. Absolutely. I think working in this type of field is and can be for anybody.

 

Matt

Emma?

 

Emma

I suppose people's journeys are slightly different, aren't they? I think, you know, even as employees, I think when I first started off in this line of work, it was for my own grief that I'd been through and, you know, something I was watching my family go through. So I was trying to get answers, not just me but my family as well. But then to see… to be able to do what I've been able to do over the last 17 years but without realizing it, I'm still me. You don't go out of your way to help someone, it's something that comes naturally. And then I think in 2019 I think it was, I was nominated woman of the year and that was national. So for me to go through such an experience and to be nominated for that award, that was just being me. So for me, that was just amazing for me. I'm able to be myself and I'm able to support people along the way, but be recognised for that. And it's just such a rewarding job that you can, you know, support your colleagues and help them grow and as well as, you know, you can save and change lives. And that just makes me happy.

 

Matt

That's wonderful. Now, if someone's listening to this podcast and they are thinking to themselves, that sounds like me or that sounds interesting or, or they may be they were in your position, Emma, where they've been through something in their life and they think getting involved in the industry might help answer some questions or what something that they're wrestling with or whatever it is. If people are interested in getting to know more about how to get involved in the homelessness sector, how do they do it? Where do they go? What do they do?

 

Emma

It's generally Matt the email that you stressed a little while ago. The first point of call is always the Octavia admin email. Christine and her team will receive that email and pass it over to the appropriate teams and we'll certainly ensure that we always follow that. And it's that starting point, you have to start somewhere. And that lies with Christine and her team.

 

Matt

And is there a national sort of database? Like does Homelessness Link have jobs boards or anything like that, you know?

 

Christine

My understanding, Matt, is that they do. The Ferry Project itself, we advertise a lot of our vacancies through Indeed, or alternatively, you can go to the Ferry Project website, which will give you a lot more information on all of the services that we look after under the Ferry Project umbrella. And it will help direct, and if you've got anything else going on in your life, actually, you might need some help with, that is probably the best place to start with.

 

Emma

And our website's really detailed now as well. It is quite a great navigator. We have this amazing man called Matt that does their website, but it is quite an easy readnow. It's… yeah, it can guide you.

 

Matt

That's wonderful. Well, thank you so much to Christine Munday, the administration manager, and also Emma Webb, the support and employment manager at the Ferry Project. Thank you both so much for joining us today.

 

Christine

Thanks, Matt.

 

Emma

Thanks, Matt.

 

Matt

And thank you as well for listening to this episode of the Rural Homelessness Podcast. Don't forget, I'll be back again really soon, either on the 1st or the 15th of every month with another episode of the Rural Homelessness Podcast with some more important and interesting discussions. So I look forward to the pleasure of your company again then. Thank you for listening and goodbye.