Company History and Objectives
SHAP was established through a three-year Department of Health grant in 1991and was managed by our parent company, CHAS. At that time the project employed 6 members of staff and supported young people in thirty tenancies leased from the local authority.
Over the years we have been successful in securing funding from various sources that has enabled us to develop a range of housing support services for young people across Kirklees. An important marker in our history was gaining independence from CHAS in 1995 and becoming a company in our own right.
In 1998 we developed a partnership project called Inroads; we now have an Inroads @ Shap Team providing a range of learning opportunities in addition to our housing support services.
Throughout the years we have gone from strength to strength, we now employ 35 members of staff, supporting an average of 350 young people a year with over 100 young people a year accessing our learning provision.
Our approach to development continues to take into account the views of staff and young people alike. We run SHAP along democratic lines, for us that means all staff are involved in developing the policies and procedures that guide our work; we consult and involve the young people as part of this process to continue to improve our services. This approach helped us to achieve an excellent report when we were awarded our Investors in People.
Previously we had housing support worker posts with remit roles that were designed to ensure our services were both accessible and appropriate to young people from the black and minority ethnic groups and to disabled young people. We also have specific services for pregnant young women and single parents and young refugees and Asian young women.
We still provide services for these groups of people and we still see our remit work as a priority however the structure for providing these services has changed. We now have a new tier in our structure to include Team Leaders, this not only gives staff more access to support and supervision but it will also form a more solid base from which to develop further.
Our two other teams that play important roles in ensuring the quality of our services continue to grow and develop. The Inroads at Shap Team, mentioned above has gained membership of the Open College Network (OCN) and been successful in achieving the MATRIX standard.
Our Central Services Team who provides the administration, financial and monitoring services for our organisation continue to grow in strength along side our support teams believing that it is crucial to have good quality back up services. Developing and maintaining a good working relationship between this team and those working directly with the young people has always been seen as important to the way we work.
During our time of considerable growth and development we have adhered to the values and beliefs that were established very early on in SHAP’s life. These include a non-judgemental attitude towards all the young people who access our services, respecting diversity, ensuring equality of access and promoting a democratic approach to the running of SHAP. This is the foundation on which we will continue to build.
Created on: 13/12/2007 Last updated: 13/12/2007