The Your Own Place team work incredibly hard behind the scenes, delivering values-led workshops and working with people in the best way for them. To showcase the impact of their work and what insights this brings, we ask a member of the Your Own Place team to share what they have recently been up to. As we end 2025, Colchester Facilitator Belinda and Colchester Project Lead Emily reflect on the incredible impact, learnings, and sadly, the end of our first innovative project embedding a remote facilitator with our partners, Colchester Borough Homes.
“In 2024, Your Own Place and Colchester Borough Homes embarked on the largest project of our partnership yet, to embed a Your Own Place facilitator in Colchester to work with 50 people each year over two years to increase tenancy sustainment skills, money management skills, and ultimately reduce the risk of tenancy issues after move-on.
Planning, training and partnership building were the focus of the end of 2024, with our dedicated Colchester Facilitator, Belinda, beginning work in identified supported accommodation provisions in January 2025. Belinda built relationships with the staff at YMCA, Emmaus, and, later on, Beyond the Box – creating relationships that meant staff felt confident to refer residents and companions to her. Belinda became “part of the furniture”, opened up conversations with residents and companions, and facilitated eye-catching and engaging activities to get people involved. This relationship building and, ultimately, becoming part of the teams at each location led to incredible results.
56 residents and companions were referred for support – either referred by supported accommodation staff or self-referred – with Your Own Place working with 45. The approach to engaging with people has been inspiring and incredibly impactful. At Your Own Place, we have always placed value on the way we engage people and invite them to work with us. With this project, we are welcomed into people’s living spaces, rather than expecting them to come to us, which further supports in removing barriers to accessing the right support.
of people reported feeling more confident to ask for help
of people reported feeling that they understand how to manage their bills better
of people reported feeling generally more confident
people moved into secure accommodation
Thank you to Colchester Borough Homes for believing in the work we do, and for integrating us into such an innovative, person-led homelessness strategy. With such incredible impact, we know this difficult decision to end the project early will not have been an easy one. As you can see, all is not lost. The impact remains; we have gathered more insight into how to make connections and engage people, and can now evidence the value of investing in a place-based model. We know that we will continue to use this insight in our future work, and that the people we have worked with will continue to use the ways they have developed to their advantage.
We are so proud of the people we have been working with, the skills they have developed, and the steps they continue to take to move forward.
A very special thank you to Belinda. whose warmth, passion, conscientiousness and empathy have made this project an incredible success.”
Final insights and a personal goodbye from Belinda:
“On the 4th November 2024, I embarked on a new role as a Facilitator at Your Own Place and wow, what a year it’s been. It started with an amazing, intense 3-month training program where I learnt so much and most importantly, it prepared me well for the project. The training made sure I would be able to deliver high-quality, fun and engaging workshops and 121’s in AQA-certified subjects covering housing, money and tenancy that would make a difference in supporting people to understand all that’s involved in keeping and maintaining a home.
Embedding myself in their community every week and becoming a regular face meant I was able to build a higher level of trust with staff and residents, which resulted in more people interested in and attending workshops and 121 sessions. Your Own Place company values, which we all work within every day and use as part of our workshops and 121 sessions, made a big difference to the people who engaged with me as part of their journey into supported or temporary accommodation. Most of the people I worked with were united about the uncertainty of the local housing system, leaving them feeling low in confidence and low in positivity for their future. To understand that they still have a choice, to be asked what works for them, to be asked what they would choose, to be asked what they know and to be able to share safely, to be listened to and heard, to be asked what they would like for their future and all with no judgement was as valuable as the practical information they gained from our workshops and 121’s.
I have learnt so much from them that has made me more knowledgeable, has taught me so much about myself and made me a better person, not just as a facilitator but in my everyday life. Your Own Place gave me that opportunity, and the team is amazing, and I have truly enjoyed getting to know every single one of them. Working at Emmaus, YMCA and Beyond the Box gave me other teams to work with, and everyone in those organisations made me feel welcomed and valued. Then there are the residents at each place that I have worked with who placed their trust in me and said “yes” not just to me but to themselves, even when they were unsure. Their journeys with me have been informative, fun, emotional, and I can’t think of a job that has brought as great a pleasure as this one. Then there are the residents who were just happy to chat, to engage in my quizzes and ask me questions, which was heartwarming.
I am disappointed that despite all the positive outcomes, the stretched budgets seen across the sector mean the early end to this project and my time at Your Own Place. It has been an emotional end, but as a company and for me, putting our trainees first and making sure that everyone I was already working with got everything they needed before I finished wasn’t negotiable.
The takeaway for me is how proud I am of all the trainees I have worked with and their determination to move forward, how much I have learnt and all the amazing people I have met along the way. I truly believe everything happens for a reason, and what comes next is bigger and better. If that can possibly be true after this experience, I’m excited for my future.“
