Using a compass to get off the streets and into work

Project Compass (the Ex-Service Ready for Work Programme) is a pilot scheme being run in London this year to help homeless ex-Service people by running programmes to get them back into work. It also aims to produce a formula that can be extended throughout the UK in the future.
Most ex-Service people will never come across Project Compass or one of its offshoots, but the few that do will need its services very badly indeed. It improves the employment prospects of people currently out of work and outside the UK's normal support systems: in other words, the homeless, the addicted, the drunk, the ill and the unfortunate. It does this by providing personal and vocational development that gains their interest, their commitment, their participation and, finally, their entry into paid employment.
It is important not to exaggerate the scale of ex-Service homelessness; no one would wish employers and other movers and shakers to imagine that it is commonplace. However, it certainly exists and Service leavers are not immune. In the vast majority of cases, homelessness is not an issue when the individual leaves the Services; nor does it result from their time in uniform. It may well arise from later circumstances - redundancy, divorce, illness, crime, addiction, or just bad luck.
However, it is an area, as previously reported in Quest, in which the MoD is making more effort to identify and help people in vulnerable situations and single-Service leavers who are entitled to little or no state-funded housing. Such initiatives as a single person's accommodation centre in Catterick, short-term accommodation in Richmond, the Shelter project at Colchester, and the planned extra resettlement advice and help for vulnerable Service leavers that will come on-stream from the autumn will all play their part. However, it can take more to break the appalling effects of losing a job, losing a relationship, losing a home, losing ambition, losing self-confidence, and finally giving up on life.
Project Compass is jointly managed by Business Action on Homelessness - part of Business in the Community - and Training for Life. The MoD's Veterans Affairs Unit and some defence companies (including the Career Transition Partnership, Rolls-Royce and BAe Systems) are providing some funding, sponsoring the programme and helping to steer it.
Project manager Patrick Lyster-Todd is an ex-Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander who left in 1992 and worked in the HIV/AIDS sector, the hospitality industry, and in TV design marketing. Recruited in December 2002, after a year that almost saw him become homeless himself, he joined the team that had set up the project, including Tom Howat and Jamie McConville, both also ex-Forces - Howat with the REME and then the Adjutant General's Corps and McConville with the Royal Engineers.
Project Compass aims to give 30 homeless ex-Service people the skills to live independently and hold down a job, to support at least 15 of the 30 into long-term employment, and to develop a model for similar schemes in the future. It has developed a series of steps that starts with recruiting and assessing the first 30 homeless ex-Service people who will make a general commitment to change their lives.
This is not as easy as it sounds. The project team is visiting charities and hostels to talk with ex-Service homeless people, showing an understanding of where people have come from - hence the importance of having ex-Service people running the programme. Having built a relationship, the team can then explain what is on offer and invite people to sign up. This recruitment phase, however, will not just stop at the first 30; there will be overlapping groups starting in March, June, October and December, taking up to 15 people each.
They will then spend some time on motivational and employment activities, other specialist training and support, and then two-week work placements with commercial companies that have agreed to help. They can also do longer work placements of up to three months where necessary.
Some of the motivational training will be through outdoor activities. An individual who cannot swim, for example, but who is prepared to jump into the sea one cold November may suddenly find the prospect of training in new skills a little less daunting. During work placements, the individual learns and practises work skills in a real environment but is able to make mistakes and learn from them, develop the right skill sets, and gain much-needed confidence.
Finally, they will be supported into full-time employment with ongoing monitoring and assessment. Throughout, each will receive one-to-one support from the project team through a personal coach.
Although most Service leavers will never need this lifeline, it could transform the fortunes of the unlucky minority. Quest wishes Project Compass and the people it helps only the very best of results from the pilot study and from the programmes developed from it.
If you know someone who is homeless and out of work, get them to call Project Compass on 020 7828 1705 or 07932 683641