An Introduction to Wisdom from the Street

In 2011, we conducted a qualitative review of over 100 people inside and outside Mayday Trust. We wanted to know what people thought of the services designed to support their move out of homelessness and toward independence.

Their feedback, and our own reflections, uncovered the systematic institutionalisation of people accessing homelessness services. The ‘traditional’ focus on needs kept people in their area of weakness, leaving them unable to create sustained, positive change for themselves.

The results were so powerful that they demanded a need for radical change. Change not only in how we delivered support, but in how our entire organisation thought, acted and responded to make sure the individual was at the heart of every decision we made and every action we took.

A whole cultural change was needed. So that’s what we did. We took a blank piece of paper and created the  Person-led, Transitional, Strength-based Response (PTS).

Wisdom From The Street illustrates the key issues highlighted to us during this review. What we learned informed a completely new way of working so that homelessness and tough times can become what they should be; a temporary transition.