About SHOC

Mission
History
Location and Facilities
Our Clients
Our Staff
Our Trustees
Our Supporters
Our Volunteers
SHOC in numbers
Fundraising Policy

Our Mission

SHOC aims to provide, within a safe and friendly environment, a comprehensive package of services to tackle homelessness and social exclusion. We aim to provide clients with the knowledge and tools that will help them to re-integrate back into society and become useful members of the community. Our service is open to all; it is non-judgemental, confidential, friendly and anti-discriminatory.

History

SHOC was set up in 1997 and is the only daycentre supporting the most vulnerable members of our society within a 20-mile radius. In 2007 our Springboard Learning Centre was opened with support from the Big Lottery Fund.

Location and Facilities

SHOC is based at Serena Hall in Burlington Avenue close to the centre of Slough. The ground floor consists of a kitchen, a lounge/dining area, staff offices, laundry facilities and shower room.

The upper floor houses the new Springboard Learning Centre which has two large training rooms containing basic IT and AV equipment and two smaller office/meeting rooms. The clothes and food stores are also located upstairs.

Slough is an urban area situated in the east of Berkshire. It is a town of extremes and great diversity. While the town itself is home to a number of successful companies, by contrast around 15% of Slough’s residents live in areas, which are among the 20% most deprived income areas in the country. A combination of high housing costs and residents holding lower paid jobs produces the circumstances, which create homelessness. Recently this has been exacerbated by a growing number of migrant workers, asylum seekers and refugees.

We work closely with the Slough Refugee Support service.

Our clients

Our clients are either homeless, threatened with homelessness or in inadequate accommodation. They include the following groups:

• Vulnerable people with mental and/or physical health issues.
• East Europeans, refugees and asylum seekers.
• People with drug and/or alcohol issues.
• Sex workers, offenders and ex-offenders.
• People with learning disabilities.
• Hard to reach communities such as the gypsy and travelling communities.

All these groups of people lead disordered lifestyles and are hard to encourage into further education or formal training without giving them basic life skills and without a lot of sensitive support.

Our clients are aged 18 and above. We have over 300 clients on our books and we see about 40 clients each day at Serena Hall.

Our Staff

The Charity employs 4 full time and 3 part-time staff, supported by the trustees and a team of committed volunteers

Our Trustees

Our Board of Trustees are Ray Waite (Chairman), Michael Smith, Stephen Canham, Alan Madge and Richard Pomerenke

The Board of Trustees meet monthly with the management team to review the activities of the Centre, fundraising plans, the financial situation and key processes and procedures. An AGM is held once a year, usually in January.

Statistics are gathered and monitored on various aspects of the operation of the charity covering areas such as number of clients housed, number of client's needs assessed, number of clients attending courses, number of clients securing employment. Latest data is shown below.

SHOC has established policies and training covering various aspects of Health and Safety. Given the nature of the clients, particular attention is given to training staff members in areas such as anger and conflict management.

The accounts for SHOC are prepared in accordance with SORP standard and are reviewed by an independent accountant who provides his services on a pro-bona basis.

Our Supporters

SHOC staff and Trustees would like to thank;

The Big lottery Fund, SEGRO, Kinnarps, UBM, O2, AkzoNobel, McAfee, Fujitsu Services, Barrett Howe Group, Mears Group, United House, Assurant Solutions, Help the Homeless, the Lankelly Chase Foundation, the J Paul Getty Trust, Lloyds TSB Foundation, Berkshire Community Foundation, Santander Trust, the London and Slough Run, St James Place Foundation, Slough Borough Council, Mars, Safer Slough Community, The friends of Slough, St Joseph’s furniture market, St James Church Gerrards Cross, St Andrew’s and St Giles Church Stoke Poges, Gerrards Cross Methodist Church, St Mary’s Denham. And other local churches, organisations, schools and individuals that have supported us.

Volunteers

SHOC has about 30 volunteers that it can call on to support its service provision. Some volunteers give a few hours each week and others come as needed, e.g. at Christmas. Volunteers help in various ways:

• Cooking meals and helping in the kitchen
• Serving tea and coffee
• Writing fundraising proposals
• Editing our newsletter
• Updating our website
• Upkeep of our food and clothes stores
• Acting as a mentor to a client
• Acting as a trustee

If you can spare a few hours each week, please contact us.

We work closely with the Slough Volunteer Centre

Safety

The Trustees seek to ensure the safety of all staff, volunteers, clients, visitors and others coming into contact with our clients. We work closely with the Slough Community Safety team to help achieve this.

Slough Community Safety team

SHOC in numbers

Income and Expenditure for Year ending 31st March

	Income	Expenditure	Surplus / (Deficit)
2008/9	177,825	178,967	(1142)
2007/8	238,462	148,078	90,384*
2006/7	134,618	141,556	(6,938)
2005/6	106,207	138,165	(31,958)

*SHOC received one off grant for the initial construction of the new Springboard Learning Centre which is included in the surplus for 2007/8.

Annual Report and Accounts 2008/9

Fundraising Policy

Up until August 2012 the Big Lottery Fund will provide the funding for the Springboard Learning Centre. Early consideration will be given to establishing alternative funding for the Centre well before the end of the Big Lottery’s commitment.

The key challenge for SHOC is to obtain stable funding for the £100,000 a year we require to maintain our other core Day Centre services outside of the Springboard Centre. The view of the Trustees is that a prudent policy for securing this funding is to seek to attract approximately two thirds of our core financing from key corporate/institutional donors, each one accounting for no more then 10-15% of the total funding requirement with the balance supplemented by fundraising events and individual sponsors. In this way SHOC viability is not threatened as a result of losing the support of any one source of income. Critical to the success of this approach is to secure the backing of a number of organisations who are prepared to provide this level of financial support.

2009/10 Statistics

Number of clients on register	350
Number of meals provided in 2009/10	>3000
Number of clients housed in 2009/10	62
Number of clients gaining employment in 2009/10	21
Number of courses completed in 2009/10	180
Number of advisory counselling sessions provided Housing /Benefit /Health	>2000

2008/9 Statistics

Number of clients on register	350
Number of meals provided in 2008/9	>3000
Number of clients housed in 2008/9	62
Number of clients gaining employment in 2008/9	20
Number of courses completed in 2008/9	100
Number of advisory counselling sessions provided Housing /Benefit /Health	>2000