Street Support has collaborated with the fantastic Coffee4Craig and Coalition of Relief (COR) to create a one-stop-shop to help charities and services provide the very best support to those that need it the most.

The new Standards Toolkit provides a best practice guide to help protect the vulnerable adults that use the services, volunteers and members of the public. Crucially it also ensures services and charities are recognised for providing the very best high quality service.

The toolkit offers a wide-range of important template policies from complaints to confidentiality and health and safety to a social media policy which is ready to use and be implemented.

The valuable standards toolkit also offers the opportunity to access useful information on achieving the two Best Practice standards (silver and gold) created by the Manchester Homelessness Partnership which honours high-quality services.

Hendrix Lancaster, director of Coffee4Craig, said: “The idea of a standardised approach for existing and new groups working within the homeless community came about as we were out on the streets asking for feedback and gaining advise from the community themselves.

“We quickly realised that there was a lot of well meaning and amazing groups out there that were not fully aware or involved in the great work being done in Manchester. The Charter, the CoR network, the homelessness partnership, The Big Change campaign and Street Support are all accessible, but there needed to be collaborative working to make sure there was no conflicting advice, conflicts in working practise with individuals and no wrong signposting. The more we know about each other as organisations the better service we can offer to end rough sleeping.

“At Coffee4Craig we really see the importance of well trained volunteers running an organisation that works within the parameters of the law, local council guidelines and offers the best possible support for the individuals we work with.

“The toolkit really creates a standard practise guide with templates, policies, advice and training through mentoring and collaboration helping to all of us work towards a single goal as a team. It’s vital that each organisation takes safeguarding as priority and follows procedures to protect our community, volunteers and the general public. Together we can create a network of empowered citizens, supported homeless community and an army of volunteers all talking, all working together and all meeting best practise standards.”

Please share the toolkit with your network and social media and if you need any support or extra information don’t hesitate and get in touch.