History
Novas Initiatives has become one of Ireland’s main providers of services to adults who are homeless. These are primarily low threshold facilities, operating the harm reduction model.
Our range of services aims to provide a continuum of care including various linked accommodation and support options, a growing service which offers intensive support to homeless families, a designated Out of Hours service and a specialised residential disability service for vulnerable young adults. We also provide a unique residential care and support service for unaccompanied minors.
Our client groups are among those most disadvantaged in society and include many who are not served by mainstream services and often are excluded even from existing voluntary services.
Low threshold access means that we do not have barriers in place for those who access our services. We accept people as they are and not as we might wish them to be. We acknowledge the individuality of each client and retain a non- judgmental approach.
Harm reduction involves a combination of clearly evidenced interventions in conjunction with innovative approaches carefully geared toward keeping those entrenched in addiction alive. We also provide a more comprehensive package for many clients who ultimately want to leave their addiction behind them, therefore illustrating that NI has greater aspirations for those involved in addiction than simply preserving their lives. A harm reduction approach means lessening the harm of drugs through education, prevention, and treatment rather than an insistence on abstinence. It is a public health philosophy that seeks to lessen the dangers that drug abuse can cause to users and addicts. Also, it acknowledges that many different interventions may work and that these interventions should be based on science, compassion, health and human rights. We continue to encourage clients to aspire to a better quality of life.
The core of our service delivery is ‘keyworking’. Each client works with a nominated keyworker and together they prepare a holistic client focused needs assessment followed by a comprehensive care and support plan. In effect, this is a series of proposals for the client about improving life and social skills, health issues, education and training, housing and potential employment options. The keyworker and manager also prepare and review a client risk assessment which informs the care and support plan which is regularly reviewed and updated to ensure that it remains relevant to changing circumstances and aspirations. Support is always at hand, but, the exit path from being homeless is ultimately theirs; we support it, they do it.
Many of our clients have been victims of physical and/or sexual abuse in the past. These clients are at risk of further exploitation due to their circumstances. Many of our older clients were institutionalised as children and we are increasingly more aware of the horrors experienced by some of these people as children and adolescents. One of the lasting effects is the high instance of mental health issues still prevalent among this group.
However, the routes to being homeless are many and varied. In the past 15 years, people are becoming homeless at a younger age and the instance of families and women being homeless has increased dramatically. There are many common threads in our clients’ backgrounds including; poor education, poor health, unemployment, family breakdown, availability of alcohol/ illicit substances and violence.
A person who has experienced homelessness over a prolonged period will frequently have very basic support needs including accommodation, food, heat, health, hygiene and contact with support services. In addition, clients will have issues with estranged families; parents, children, partners or friends. Consequently, our emergency accommodation services predominantly provide for clients with a range of support needs including those with high support needs.
We support clients having a voice on all projects. This includes clients being consulted on changes/ developments which will affect them. This occurs through a variety of means including; meetings with management, resident meetings, surveys/questionnaires and newsletters. Some projects also include clients on their health and safety committees and, on occasions, on staff interview panels. A client and a former client are current members of the Board; one has previously been Chairperson.
