Cornerstone has run Hartlepool’s rough sleeping assertive outreach team on behalf of Hartlepool Borough Council for the past three years and is based at our new Park Road site in the town centre. Our workers and trained volunteers seek out and engage people sleeping on the streets offering them aid to improve housing prospects and access to advice and information, get them out of the cold, and improve their health and wellbeing.
Cornerstone’s Park Road hub sits at the heart of its community in Hartlepool’s town centre and as well as being a great place to see and order our furniture and sheds, it offers support, advice, and signposting to helpful services that empower people to make good choices in life. At Park Road, you will find groups and activities created by the community themselves to help themselves. At this friendly and welcoming hub, you will find a thriving and powerful Women’s Group, many drop-ins where whatever the issue you have, they know who can help, a food bank, clothes bank, computer and internet access, and much more.
Alternative Provision of Education for Young People
Cornerstone places great value in offering an equal chance for young people in our communities to achieve the highest possible standard of education.
Important studies conducted by Cornerstone in 2014 found that more than 80% of homeless adults it has housed had disengaged with the education system before leaving age. It also discovered that, as a result of this disengagement from education, the homeless adults who took part in the studies had endured increased exposure to a multitude of social and economic inequalities that included joblessness, debt and low income, drug and alcohol misuse, and health problems.
In a proactive approach to steer young people away from a path that can carry a risk of leading to homelessness, Cornerstone offers an alternative education provision that provides a transitional step back towards learning for dozens of young people not currently attending a school.
Cornerstone uses its social enterprise factory in Willington to offer placements to young people 12 to 18 who are ambitious to re-join learning, participation while building self-worth, confidence, and aspiration to succeed as part of a team.
If you are a school interested in arranging a placement or a site viewing for one of your pupils, please call Jeff Malpas on 01388 747892 or email jeff.malpas@cornerstone-north.org
