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Care Leavers

At Handcrafted, we are committed to supporting young people as they transition from care to independent living.

Our work with care leavers across the North East focuses on providing long-term housing, support, and opportunities for growth, empowerment, and stability.

We house our care leavers in their own, independent Handcrafted properties, providing the foundation for them to flourish in a safe and supportive environment. Our approach includes regular welfare checks, gathered activities, and consistent guidance to empower young people to take their next steps, whatever they may be. With isolation and homelessness being a rising concern for moving on Children in Care, we believe that this is a crucial place to invest time, and put compassion at the heart of working with some of the most vulnerable young people to ensure that they are drawn into community and have a place to call home.

In addition to housing and support, Handcrafted offers care leavers valuable opportunities to build confidence and gain hands-on experience. Our enterprise pathway allows young people to work with us in various roles, including work experience opportunities in catering and t-shirt printing. This initiative acts as a stepping stone toward future employment, encouraging young people to develop new skills and discover their potential.

At Handcrafted, we are passionate about creating new opportunities for care leavers to thrive. By combining stable housing, emotional support, and practical experiences, we help to guide young people in building brighter futures and moving forward with confidence.

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Testimonials

There are countless challenges and barriers between our Fairchance service users and a healthy, productive and satisfying life.

We often use the term ‘chaotic lifestyle’ to describe the multitude of issues they face, and we contrast this lifestyle with an ideal that is secure, positive, stable and fulfilling. Often people looking in on the lifestyles of our service users find them intimidating, disorientating and full of risk – it should be no surprise that the same is true the other way around. For our service users who are looking into employment, education and stable accommodation, what they often see is a very unfamiliar culture and environment that they are unable to navigate.

Handcrafted helps to bridge this gap. It’s a middle ground between work and leisure where our service users are building confidence, self-esteem, working relationships, responsibilities, a sense of achievement. As a natural consequence of this and armed with the skills necessary to make this transition our service users are developing goals and ambitions and making plans for the futures that they are beginning to see as a reality for themselves.

Joe K, Fair Chance Project, Oasis Aquila Housing