Where From? Where Now?

Women at St Mungo’s

• 24% of St Mungo’s clients are women[1]
• 11% have a history of being in care[2]
• 34% slept rough after leaving home to escape domestic abuse[3]
• 45% are mothers[4]
• 66% have a mental health problem[5]
• 55% have a substance use problem[6]
• 41% who have slept rough have been involved in prostitution[7]
• 28% have been in prison[8]
• 63% of women who needed to secure settled accommodation did so before leaving St Mungo’s services[9]

“A big part of hostels is giving everyone the skills to recognise that they deserve better. To give them the courage to speak up, to say ‘No, I’m worth more than this’; ‘No, I deserve better’; or ‘I deserve somewhere safe to sleep, somewhere warm, where I can rest and be safe’. We need to make sure we instill that in them before we send them off into their own flats or the next stage, whatever it might be.”Kate John, Activities Development Worker, St Mungo’s


“Psychotherapy as a profession has considered that the sort of people who might end up in St Mungo’s homeless hostels would not be suitable for psychotherapy. That’s not been our experience at all. People are able to make use of the therapy to build a relationship, even if they are still drinking, still using drugs, still what we would call acting out. Sometimes they have just changed their level of happiness. And sometimes people have changed their behaviours significantly.”Gabrielle Brown, Psychotherapist for St Mungo’s Life Works Team

“It’s absolutely amazing: we’ll offer some of the women a trip, just something simple like going to the seaside and they go off on a trip and it’s been a eye-opener for them and they’ve come back and they’ve changed their life. They’re committed to their detox and their recovery and they’re doing really well, reconnecting with family. Some are even travelling all over the world. When it happens, those positive things give the staff motivation.”Stella Wells, Manager of St Mungo’s South London Women’s Service

The photographs on this page are of the service providers who are quoted.

[9] St Mungo’s Service Provider Outcomes Data for women departures April 2011-March 2012

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 1st, 2012 at 12:31 pm. It is filed under background. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.