Throne Homes exists to provide supported living accommodation in Hereford for young people in care, care leavers and young people who find themselves homeless with the aim of preventing Hereford young people from needing to be housed away from their home city and wider connections.
Having prepared ourselves for launch as a charity, we are looking for our first property to provide a two to three bedroomed home for young people with a staff member staying overnight at the home. Throne Homes will employ four to five staff members initially.
This home will be supplemented by a range of support services which will include one to one and group mentoring, advocacy, life skills and welfare development, support with family/friends’ connections and advice and support for access to statutory, welfare and benefits provisions. To offer therapeutic support where the needs arises in the form of life story support and counselling. The aim of this is for young people to gain a sense of belonging, to work through trauma/loss and move to feeling secure in their identity and mantain good mental health.
We want to support all young people to gain an education, apprenticeship, training and/or work in order to achieve high employment, social inclusion and a good quality of life.
The service manager of Throne Homes Jo Williams is a registered social worker and says “as a Herefordian born and bred I have a passion to see young people from Hereford grow up and thrive in their home city. Too many young people in care are placed miles from Hereford because we do not have enough suitable, good quality accommodation to meet their needs. It is my vision to fill this gap but also to offer something different to the few supported living homes that are already in Hereford”.
A high population of adults who are in prison and who are street homeless have been in care as young people and while there are some great charities working with the prison and homeless communities there is very little support and public awareness of the needs and vulnerabilities of young people in care and care leavers. As part of our work we plan to raise the awareness of this group of young people to elevate their voice in society.
