Last Updated on April 21, 2017

Hearing Coastline Homeless Service’s Partner Programme announced as the winner of the Citizenship Award was an amazing moment, not just for us as staff but for all our volunteers who have donated their time to the programme.

In May 2014, the Partner Programme was launched as an extension of Coastline Homeless Service’s Volunteer Scheme. The programme, based in Cornwall, supports current clients of our homeless service to volunteer within Coastline. This has provided socially-excluded adults with opportunities to develop essential employability skills and access training with the aim of getting back into work. It has also resulted in valuable peer learning for clients.

The Award ceremony itself was heartfelt and very touching. The performances by the Certitude Community Choir and dance performance by Halas Homes provided a wonderful atmosphere and really set the tone for the whole event.

It has been such a great achievement to have the Partner Programme recognised at a national level.  We feel that our hard work on the project, and passion for it, has been truly acknowledged by our peers. We hope that this might lead to other projects following suit and creating their own similar schemes, which work towards social inclusion. The publicity from winning the Citizenship Award, we hope, has brought the topic of homelessness to the forefront within the Cornish community. This is a county where homelessness is not thought of as a major problem, but in reality it has the third highest population of rough sleepers in the country. It is important to raise awareness. For our volunteers, the Award highlights the positive work that Coastline does amongst the community and will, hopefully, lead to a greater awareness and understanding of the service as a whole.

Winning the Award was an excellent finish to 2015. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our fantastic volunteers for the hours they have donated since the start of the project as, without their commitment to the programme, it wouldn’t be the success that it is.

Tamsyn Pegler & Jo Cowling
Coastline Homeless Service

With thanks to Person Centred Software for kindly sponsoring this Award. Find out more about their services at www.personcentredsoftware.com