Since 2012 Handcrafted has been providing housing, support, training and opportunities to empower the most vulnerable people in society to do the hard day-to-day work of turning their lives around.
We have developed a sustainable hub model to deliver our person-centred, holistic approach. And have scaled it across the North-East, first in Durham then to Chester-Le-Street, Gateshead and, recently, Sunderland.
Our hubs are based in areas of high deprivation to provide a welcoming community and holistic support. We ensure our hubs are flexible, able to adapt to their area’s specific needs by working alongside local councils, community groups and organisations.
The focus of our work is supporting people with multiple, complex needs from disadvantaged backgrounds, who we find most benefit from a holistic approach designed to meet their interconnected needs. Their needs include a combination of factors such as homelessness, unemployment, leaving care, leaving prison, seeking asylum, addiction, mental health issues, disability, and domestic abuse.
In 2023, we began our specialist young person’s provision for 16-25s, the Engage Hub. They work across all of our areas supporting and housing young asylum-seekers and refugees, and care leavers with complex needs.
I work as a prolific offender coordinator within police and my role is to reduce re-offending, I work with offenders who have been within court and prison system for numerous years.
Handcrafted has been instrumental in providing training, skills and support to help these most chaotic offenders in the local community. To a lot of people going to work each day would be a normal part of life. The majority of the prolific offenders within the offender management unit have very little or in some cases no work experience.
Handcrafted have provided the opportunity to build their confidence, self-belief, working with others and learning a trade. They get a huge sense of achievement working on various projects within Handcrafted. The staff are always very supportive and Handcrafted has become a valuable partner agency.