Kindness at the front door - Changing Futures Sheffield - 21/07/2026

"The basic measure of success for us is that a person feels seen. Just that feeling of ‘someone's got my back’." That's how Dan, team manager of the Changing Futures project in Sheffield, describes what his team is working towards, with some of the city's most vulnerable people.

Changing Futures began as a national pilot, commissioned to test new ways of supporting people experiencing multiple disadvantage, defined by the Government as someone facing three or more of five specific challenges: homelessness or risk of homelessness, mental health needs, substance use issues, contact with the criminal justice system, and experience of domestic abuse, either as a victim or a perpetrator.

"Most of the people we support aren't facing three of those five things," said Dan. "They're facing four or five. These are people whose lives have been shaped by any number of traumatic experiences, and whose needs sit right across all of those areas at once."

The team currently supports around 70 people, and over the life of the project has worked with upwards of 250 individuals. Their average period of support runs to somewhere between one and two years, though some people have been with the project since it began, over four years ago.

The Changing Futures in Sheffield is built around three connected strands. The core team delivers direct, intensive support to individuals, with support workers carrying a caseload of around seven people, deliberately small, so that support can be tailored and unhurried.

Alongside that, South Yorkshire Housing Association coordinates a peer support and co-production service, involving people with lived experience both on the ground and at a strategic level, so that their voices shape how services are designed and delivered. And in partnership with Project 6, the team offers training in trauma-informed practice to professionals across the city, including GP receptionists.

"Just imagine trying to access your GP when you're withdrawing from a substance, your mental health is really bad, you're cold, and you're terrified," said Dan. "Kindness at that front door can make a huge difference to whether someone actually gets the help they need."

Ali, a Changing Futures support worker, describes a recent morning that captures exactly what that difference can look like in practice. She had accompanied a woman to a GP appointment, but before they arrived, Ali had already spoken to the nursing team to explain how the woman might present, that she wasn't a risk to anyone, and that she would just need a little more patience.

"During the appointment, she accidentally spilled lager in the treatment room," said Ali. "And when we came out, the first thing she said to me was, 'Do you think they're going to ban me?' That's been her experience, no tolerance, just being excluded. But they weren't going to ban her. They were patient and kind, they were even laughing with her, because she is genuinely funny."

"When you walk into a waiting room and people are looking at her like she's no one, that's heartbreaking. I know she feels it too, because she won't wait inside anymore. But I know that me being there makes a difference. Just sitting there with her."

The team's low caseloads make this kind of support possible, with the flexibility to be responsive and drop everything when something is needed that day, to accompany someone to an appointment rather than just arranging one. “She could probably get there on her own," said Ali. "But at what cost?"

One of the project's most important functions is advocacy, and navigating a system that, without someone to guide people through it, can feel impossibly complex.

"A lot of the work we do outside of direct support is system navigation," said Dan. "Getting in contact with the right people, making sure nothing has been overlooked, greasing the cogs. Things get missed, not because of any individual's fault, but because the system is set up in a way where people can tend to work in silos. We try to reduce that."

Ali describes a man she worked with who had been referred to Changing Futures through Likewise. He was at risk of eviction, living with schizophrenia, not taking his medication, and his family were at breaking point. A social worker had been trying to get in to see him for months.

"As soon as I walked into his flat, it was heartbreaking that he'd been allowed to live that way for so long," said Ali. "He was being cuckooed. He was clearly in a manic episode. The housing officer was battle-weary and heading towards eviction."

Ali advocated for a different approach, connected the social worker, and worked alongside the family as well as the individual himself. He was eventually moved into supported housing, and Ali stayed involved through the transition, briefing the support team on his triggers, his needs, and how to speak with him. Now, she says, it feels like the right time to step back.

"His last three urine tests were clear," said Ali. "He's got a new appointee for his finances, which is what he wanted. He's not homeless. Those were his goals, and he's met them. If we hadn't stepped in as a service, I think he would have been homeless or worse. It was that serious."

Success for the team tends to show up in small moments. Ali describes another person she supports, a man who had a profound mistrust of every service he'd encountered, and whose self-neglect had reached a serious level by the time they met.

"He had a huge stone in his bladder and was in agony," said Ali. "After a lot of time, a lot of patience, and a lot of proving that I'd follow through on even the smallest things I said I'd do, he let me help him get that sorted. Then there were his teeth, he felt ashamed about them and hadn't been to a dentist in years."

One by one, those things were addressed. His GP who hadn't seen him in six years is now a regular point of contact, he's getting new teeth, and his driving licence has been sorted. "He actually drove to Likewise yesterday to meet me," said Ali. "That is massive. That is success."

"Sometimes it's not a linear process from the bottom to the top of Maslow's hierarchy," Dan said. "Sometimes it's finding something that sparks joy, something that was important to someone when they were a kid, or sorting out something that feels small but is enormous to that person. And that becomes the anchor. Everything else starts to build from there."

The Changing Futures team in Sheffield has a staff retention rate that is a point of genuine pride. "Continuity matters enormously to the people we support," said Dan. "They get to know not just their own support worker, but the whole team. That kind of consistency, over time, is part of what makes the trust possible."

"We are constantly evolving as a service, learning from feedback, from data, from the people we support," said Dan. "If something isn't working, we try something else. We're really lucky to have that flexibility. And we want to use it to help everyone across the system do their jobs better, not just the people on our caseload."

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As told to Alison Wise for Help us Help, July 2026

For more information about the Changing Futures project in Sheffield, visit www.changingfuturessheffield.info