At Handcrafted, we understand that people need tailored, person-centred support to overcome challenges and move forward. We aim to provide an environment that empowers individuals through meaningful engagement, training, and care.

This policy outlines our approach to delivering high-quality Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) to all trainees and residents. We aim to equip people with the support and knowledge they need to grow in confidence and take positive next steps in their lives.

This policy will be reviewed as required and at least every 2 years by the group or individual responsible for review and authorised by the Trustees as below:

Group or individual responsible for review	Training Manager
Last review and approval

Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) Policy

We refer to anyone who engages with Handcrafted activities as a ‘trainee’, and individuals who live in one of our supported houses as a ‘resident’.

Introduction

Information, advice and guidance is an umbrella term for providing information and support to enable people to reach their full potential.

We are committed to providing high-quality IAG for all trainees and residents, to help them gain stability and achieve their personal goals. We recognise that people have unique needs and aspirations, so IAG is tailored to individuals and incorporated throughout our holistic support offer.

Our person-centred approach to IAG is rooted in our core values of empathy, empowerment, community, and creativity.

Aims

Our IAG policy is to:

Provide advice and tailored support to trainees and residents with complex needs.
Recognise that people are the experts on their own lives and support them to identify their own needs and strengths.
Encourage trainees and residents to grow their skills and confidence in a way that helps them towards greater independence and achieving their personal goals.
Provide trainees and residents with information about the range of employment opportunities and progression available to them, so that they can make well-informed decisions about next steps.
Develop employability skills through tailored training and volunteering opportunities within Handcrafted.
Recognise the power of community to provide stability and support to people who have been on the fringes of society.
Partner with independent organisations to access external IAG support and increase the range of opportunities available for our trainees and residents.
Ensure that all individuals have equal access to IAG support, regardless of background, to promote diversity and inclusion.

This programme will align with the requirements of the Matrix Standard (the Department for Education’s quality standard for organisations that deliver IAG: https://matrixstandard.com/).

Delivery of IAG

We work with people on the fringes of society who have not had good opportunities to grow in their strengths and to build stability for themselves.

Our delivery of IAG is integrated throughout the whole of our work as we seek to engage, retain and support vulnerable people with complex needs. It includes, but is not limited to:

Practical activity sessions to engage individuals, provide routine, and give them a sense of purpose
Community hubs with regular social activities to provide a safe, welcoming environment for isolated and vulnerable individuals
Tailored, one-to-one support for residents in our houses with complex needs
Accredited and non-accredited training courses, such as in carpentry, catering, crafts, digital skills, and employability, to build up skills and confidence
Volunteering and employment opportunities at our community cafe
Social enterprise initiatives supported by IAG and 1-2-1 support
Working with the strengths and dynamic needs of trainees to continually develop further volunteering, employment, and enterprise opportunities

Staff Roles and Responsibilities

All staff members contribute to the delivery of IAG through the time and compassion that they invest in individuals. We engage, build trust, open up conversation, encourage, challenge, and celebrate successes.

Weekly hub team meetings and monthly Housing Support Officer Gatherings help facilitate a strong culture of collaboration, peer support and sharing best practice between staff in key frontline roles. All staff have access to central IAG training and resources to ensure that IAG policy and the values underpinning it are consistently understood and upheld.

Housing Support Officers

Helping the residents they support to discover their own strengths and abilities
Supporting residents to access the right opportunities, training, and gathered activities for them
Delivering holistic 1-2-1 learning in independent living skills and functional skills through structured and informal support
Helping residents move into independent accommodation and coordinating support with other external partners, such as employability programmes, public health services, and Citizens’ Advice

Trainer/Assessors

Supporting trainees to progress through a pathway of person-centred learning that develops their independent living skills and employability prospects
Planning, delivering, and assessing a range of accredited and non-accredited training courses
Promoting the attendance, progression, and wellbeing of trainees through their learning journey
Implementing quality assurance processes in line with relevant guidelines
Discussing next steps into further training, volunteering, or employment once trainees have completed a training course
Engaging with trainees who have been out of education or employment for long periods or are just being introduced to learning in the UK

Workshop/Kitchen Supervisors

Supporting trainees to make progress and maintain long-term stability through gathered activities, and recording evidence of this
Signposting trainees to access wider support at the hub and through partner organisations
Helping trainees recognise their own strengths and potential, and facilitating the development of their creativity with their own project ideas
Working alongside other training staff to deliver accredited training

The Training Manager

Operational oversight of training provision, ensuring the delivery of high-quality planning, teaching, and assessment
Developing the curriculum of training courses to enhance the progression and skill development of trainees
Ensuring that IAG opportunities are embedded within courses
Identifying potential new training opportunities to promote the journey and prospects of trainees
Working with the Internal Verifier to ensure awarding body compliance and quality assurance processes are met

The Internal Verifier

Facilitating clear progression routes across our training by ensuring robust assessment standards on our accredited courses

Partners

We have a wide range of established partnerships in place and we seek to maintain close working relationships to help ensure positive outcomes for our trainees and residents.

We recognise that engaging people in mainstream services such as further education, training and employment is a step-by-step process. We connect with other organisations to help people find more training, volunteering and support opportunities where appropriate, helping them move into greater independence as much as possible.

We also collaborate with other organisations to ensure that quality services are widely delivered. We share our model with the local authority and other policymakers to demonstrate best practice and reshape the way homelessness and mental health provision are delivered across the region. We also share best practice with other organisations in the sector, working with them to offer better support to vulnerable people. We receive support and expertise from other organisations, especially where they are more specialised, pointing our trainees and residents in their direction.

Evaluation, Review and Quality Assurance

We regularly seek feedback across all our services from trainees, residents, staff, and partners. New workshops and activities are added in response to feedback from trainees and analysis of needs. This growing range of activity sessions and training workshops offered attracts a more diverse range of people.

The development of our contact records database and the Empowerment Matrix gives us an insight into the effectiveness of our services, as we gather data and feedback, and analyse trends.

For all of our trainees, the Empowerment Matrix tracks the ‘distance travelled’ and ‘stability maintained’ across the five Empowerment Areas: ‘living space’, ‘using time’, ‘social life’, ‘self-confidence’, and ‘coping strategies’. These five areas align with the complex needs of our trainees and the various services we offer - housing, community, support, and training - and we see that empowerment in these areas leads to sustainable change in people’s lives. Outcomes measured through the Empowerment Matrix not only allow us to evaluate the effectiveness of our services, but they also inform how we deliver IAG, helping us adapt to individual needs so that we can best support our trainees and residents moving forward.

We have developed consistent approaches to feedback across the hubs, including:

A six-monthly trainee feedback survey with questions focused on the five Empowerment Areas across all hubs
A six-monthly resident feedback survey across all hubs
Support plans to include residents’ own goals and targets, which support teams will review with them every three months across all hubs
Trainee feedback sought at the end of training courses
Our Airtable Contact Record form includes a check box for ‘Feedback Given’
- The box should be checked if the contact record contains any feedback given by a trainee
- Feedback data is reviewed by the Core Team and communicated to relevant hubs/teams every three months
- This data also feeds into the Quality Improvement Log

Regular and responsive training for all staff helps us maintain the quality of IAG support across the organisation. Specific responsibilities relating to IAG quality assurance include:

Training Manager: working with the internal verifier to ensure that awarding body compliance and quality assurance processes are met
Internal Verifier: conducting internal quality assurance (IQA) activities to ensure that all accredited training courses are offered in compliance with the awarding organisation’s guidelines
Operations Directors: overseeing all the operations of the organisation, ensuring the effective delivery of housing support and training programmes across all hubs
Senior Support Worker: overseeing the quality of support offered to residents and trainees across the organisation