I work for Nightstop South Yorkshire which is part of Depaul UK, a national youth homelessness charity. The first Nightstop started in Leeds in 1987 after the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Faith in the City report. You can read more here: https://uk.depaulcharity.org/nightstop/
Nightstop provides emergency accommodation for people who find themselves without a safe place to stay in the homes of volunteers. Through this, often same day, intervention of providing a ‘safe night’ we are able to work with other support agencies to secure more permanent accommodation.
As an organisation we rely on volunteers to provide a safe place for young people. Nightstop Hosts are volunteers who provide a private room in their own homes for Gueststo sleep in, a warm meal, access to washing facilities and are available to talk, should the Guest wish to do so; many are simply exhausted from their trauma and just want to take the opportunity of a safe place to sleep. We provide all the training a volunteer needs to accommodate a young person, with any additional, specialist training that may be required. All young people are subject to thorough background checks to make sure Nightstop and the volunteer are comfortable accommodating them. Being a Nightstop Host is a flexible commitment, volunteers may offer anything from one night up to a whole week of accommodation and can change this on a week to week basis.
During the COVID-19 pandemic Nightstop adapted to ensure that we could still offer safe places to those who needed it and manage the risks around transmission of the disease. Demand on all homelessness support services is very high and we want to ensure that the Nightstop service reaches as many people as possible by increasing the number of hosts we have available in Sheffield.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and if you need any further information or should you come across anyone who you find to be in need of accommodation please do not hesitate to get in touch.
Kind regards
M. Preston
Nightstop co-ordinator
Mark Preston
Nightstop Coordinator
Nightstop South Yorkshire
Depaul UK
07595563075
01142 787152
