This document discusses supporting Black and minority ethnic (BME) people who live in supported housing. It emphasizes that being Black is both the most important and least important aspect of delivering support. It questions whether the focus has been on "supported housing" rather than enabling people to have homes and community connections. The document outlines causes like exclusion, poverty, and isolation that services should address. It discusses the value that organizations like Ujima Housing Group can provide through understanding racial and cultural identities.
2. Starting points…
♦ When delivering support, being black is
the both most important and most
unimportant thing at the same time
♦ In the ‘support industry’ we have been
pre-occupied with providing ‘supported
housing’ rather than enabling people to
create and live in ‘homes’ and become
part of communities
4. A focus on the Causes..
♦ Exclusion from education,
♦ Financial hardship/poverty
♦ Unemployment
♦ Poor self image
♦ Social isolation and skills, information,
valued relationships,
♦ Experience of ‘care’ system
♦ Family conflicts / poor parenting
5. Critical Questions
♦ What are you doing to prevent family
breakdown ?
♦ How are you responding to exclusions
from schools ?
♦ How are you preventing substance
use/abuse ?
♦ How do you help service users
(reluctant customers) find and maintain
relationships ?
6. How do we support people?
♦ somewhere to live
♦ emotional problems
♦ getting through a crisis
♦ a full life during the day
♦ making and keeping friendships
7. more…
♦ getting and holding down a job
♦ getting a reasonable income
♦ Someone to speak on their behalf
♦ learning new skills
8. Quality Assessment Framework
(QAF) C1.5 Fair Access, diversity
and inclusion
♦ A focus on commitment to principles of
equality of opportunity
♦ Respecting difference
♦ Involving users
How does this framework recognise those who
work with ‘sameness’
9. UJIMA's added value…
♦ Help to make/keep contact with people
from their own background
♦ Opportunities to explore who they are
racially and culturally
♦ Multi-lingual staff to explore ‘language
codes’
♦ Knowledge of patterns of expression
♦ Commitment to development of the
Black ‘community’
10. On being Black…
♦ Not everyone knows that they are black,
some people discover it…
11. Dr William Cross
♦ A clinical psychologist practicing in the
USA
♦ Aim – to explain the need for
psychological liberation under
conditions of oppression
♦ Central issues is IDENTITY and
TRANSITION
12. Published..
♦ Negro-to-Black conversion. 1971
♦ Models of Nigrescence. 1980
(Nigrescence – from the French ‘the process of becoming
Black’)
♦ Shades of Black. 1991
♦ His work has been modified and adapted to
the British context by Dr June Farrell
13. Development of identity
♦ AUTOMATIC ♦ DISCOVERY
– ‘socialisation’ – ‘encounter’
– Early childhood – ‘the process of
– Adolescence becoming black’
– adulthood – ‘nigrescence’
14. Stages in Black identity
development
♦ Pre-Encounter - Identifies with White culture, rejects
or denies membership in Black culture.
♦ Encounter - Rejects previous identification with
White culture, seeks identification with Black culture.
♦ Immersion/Emersion - Completely identifies with
Black culture and denigrates White culture.
♦ Integration/Commitment - Internalizes Black
culture, transcends racism, fights general cultural
oppression.
15. A look at racial identity…why?
♦ Gives a framework for understanding of
responses and presentations
♦ Acknowledges the impact of racism and
discrimination on choices
♦ Help referrers to make more appropriate
referrals to services
♦ Assists commissioners to understand and
value of a wide spectrum of services
16. In a word…
♦ Some black people use our services
because we are Black like them, whilst
others in our communities do not use
our services because we are Black’
17. Investing in the community
‘Places full of strangers are inevitably felt
to be places full of dangers’
Gerald Lemos – Steadying the ladder
18. The Ujima approach
New Mission
To Engage, Enable & Enrich our BME
communities
19. ♦ Engage – with young people through
earlier interventions
♦ Enable – adults to have the means of
improving their life chances and making
better use of their
♦ Enrich – the lives of older people
through a sensitive approach to their
care and providing valued roles within
the ‘Ujima community’
23. ‘Creating a home of my own’
Supported living flat, Franz Fanon House
24. ‘Creating a home of my own’
Supported living flat, Franz Fanon House
Notas do Editor
I have been asked to present some ideas and examples on the issues of Black people and homelessness. But in order to do this, I will take a little time to set the context of the dynamics of homelessness and becoming vulnerable that are specific to members of the black community and then outline how this steers an appropriate response to this.
To coin a phrase, ‘providing support is not a black and white issue’ Nor is it simply about keeping people out of trouble and off the streets. I can illustrate this with two statements;
The real challenge is to affect the causes of vulnerability and disadvantage. And for black people, to respond to the additional complexities the emerge when race is dimension..
For those of you who are familiar with Supporting People… QAF C1.5 on Fair access presents specific services like the ones we run in Ujima (described as Black on Black) with a dilemma…. The general discourse around fair access, diversity and inclusion is a discussion about cross cultural practice
A truism, but a need to incorporate this into service range, and design… To illustrate I will share a model which can give insight into this dynamic relationship..
In order for us to move away from responding to impacting, Ujima is changing it’s organisation to meet this new challenge.
Engage – Mentoring schemes, Foundation schools, partnerships with local schools to provide placement opportunities for excluded students. Enable – through our social enterprise business we are putting our money to work in providing opportunities for ‘real jobs’ and ‘training experiences that improve employability’ For example start up business units, accredited training, construction/maintenance jobs, Community Banks Enrich – older people have lifetimes worth of knowledge and this can be of use to a younger person starting out, or they may provide a positive ‘role model/ mentor’
Finally, when it works, you will some ‘small changes’…