Street Carers - a new direction?

Another meeting down at Willcox House down the Bay this morning, to report back on investigation of alternative sites for the nightly street care feeding station. Each option seems to have discouraging snags. All those with money and power would like to see the work take place somewhere else, anywhere apart from out there on the thoroughfare, next to our shiny new palaces of commerce.

Given that Sgt McNeil had taken the initative to call the first meeting two weeks ago I was surprised that she neither attended nor sent apologies. I don't know how the police think they can really understand the concerns street carers share if the only thing they do is to react to a problem by spinning off an initiative, then letting it go its own way, without 'learning by doing' as the rest of us are.

Liz Perrett-Atkins of the Rainbow of Hope was at this meeting. She'd been unable to attend the previous one, and didn't seem that well briefed about the issue now being addressed. She was quick to rise to the defence of her flock when a statement was made about the problems we were seeking to tackle. But then, she surprised us all by defusing the situation by announcing an initiative soon to be realised which will remove the problem from the streets. She's looking at some kind of accommodation base for street care work within the city centre, and believes she's getting close to a solution. This made us all sit up and take notice, and the meeting was adjourned until such a date when Liz had a firm announcement to make.

The street care work being done at Glenwood Church's TAVs centre off City Road has shown  what a difference permanent accommodation can make, however it's rather far out for some being ministered to in the city centre. Somewhere close at hand would be a dream come true. We'll be thrilled if this happens. My concern is simply that such a change is properly communicated to all those volunteer teams which make up the monthly rota in good time to make things run smoothly.

This evening there was meant to be a Street Carers' Forum Representative Group to report on the two meetings that had taken place on this subject, but Paul's email service let him down without him realising it, and only a few got sufficient notice to attend, so we reviewed and made lots of notes to post on the Street Carers' blog. We discussed recruitment from the student community and how the taining evenings we've set up could be publicised. This set me thinking - it's about time to create a website for the Forum to help things along.