Working in Marketing, we can sometimes feel disconnected from the real work of Bethany Christian Trust. It’s important that we get out and about, into the heart of the support that goes on each day and see firsthand its life-changing impact.
In this vein, we recently took a trip to Glasgow to visit some of the community groups that take place each week in the city. Dilly Harris, Community Support and Development Manager for Glasgow, kindly took the time to show us around and introduce me and my colleague, Liam, to the communities and people who Bethany work with. This was my second time visiting Bethany services in Glasgow and I was excited to hear and see all that has been going on since my last visit.
And what a day it was. Full of people, laughter, friendship, belonging and hope. I got home, exhausted and inspired, and caught my thoughts in note form, not wanting to lose the essence of the day’s impact.
Visiting Bethany’s services is a fantastic way to connect with the work we support.
What did we do? Dilly took us around some of the different groups and services around the north and centre of the city, all of which fit into Bethany’s Homelessness Prevention work. The focus here is “going upstream” from the visible reality of homelessness (eviction, rough sleeping, fatalities) and intervening before the moment of crisis. This aspect of Bethany’s operations is about providing community and walking alongside people.
First up, we’re at Findlay Church where eight women have gathered from the community to spend their morning chatting and making sanitary pads to send to Uganda, where one of them has a connection. The group meet each week as part of a Self-Reliant Group, a community-based group where people can freely come and share life while working together on a common interest to sell or gift to others. A warm greeting welcomes us into a huge, calm, and beautifully lit room. Cups for tea, a bowl of fruit and a single pound coin are on a table.
Findlay Church offers a beautiful and welcoming space for people from the community to gather and build relationships.
Liam sets to work taking photos of the scene while I sit down with one of the ladies, Marina. She is working gently at a sewing pattern for the pads. As we chat, she brings out her most recent project: a wee material square she tells me is a Manx quilt. It is an intricate pattern of strips, hand cut and pinned together in a small 6×6 inch patch. Marina explains to me how communities would historically come together to create these small patches, joining them together into one completed quilt. Blankets would be made one at a time, with the community making patches until one person’s was complete, before moving onto the next. Marina’s square is just a small technical exercise, not yet stitched together.
‘We are saving one pound a week to buy another sewing machine.’
A parallel strikes me, between the Manx blanket and the community here at Findlay. Both demonstrate the strength of coming together, pooling resources and sharing a common goal.
Marina’s Manx blanket patch.
Two Bethany staff are present at the session. Mair is a longstanding member of the community and facilitates the group, while Jax is there as part of our Advocacy service which started in Glasgow last year. Her work centres on helping people to access the government support they need, and in this setting you see the value of an accessible, non-intimidating service. As we chat with the group and share a cup of tea, one woman grabs Jax for a quick chat about a particular situation she is needing help with. This is the kind of one-to-one support that might often need an appointment and weeks of waiting-lists; Jax brings it to the community.
Mair facilitates the Self Reliant Group, hosting the session and providing ad-hoc support for those that attend.
We are tempted by a plate of biscuits on the way out, but we are heading onwards to Clay Café in Possilpark. The area is a mix of pharmacies and pubs, with a large new-build estate in construction around the bright white oasis of Bardowie Street Hall, where the café is situated. At the café, a group of young people are taking part in workplace training, learning skills like customer service, kitchen hygiene, and coffee preparation. Dilly even tells us about one of the boys who has set up his own bakery business, baking bread in the cafe kitchen and drafting his own business plan. This is a supportive place where key skills can be learned, confidence can grow, and young people can flourish.
Bethany provides key employability and skills support, including barista training in a working café.
Next up we are off to visit the community of guys who live in Bethany’s supported flats around the city. We meet Toby at a local café and are quickly joined by three others – Joe, Dean and Peter.
This is such a warm environment: jokes about drink orders (Dean loves an iced coffee covered in cream), stories about bonsai trees, friendships across age brackets. During the conversation, Dilly is able to support Peter with his photo ID and completing an online form, as well as, curiously, promising to bring some stick insects for Joe to have as pets. Apparently, caring for pets has been a remarkable indicator of successful tenancies – Dilly is hoping the responsibility of cleaning and feeding his stick insects will help Joe in his journey to independent living.
The final item on our itinerary is to take some photos for Bethany UpStream, our youth counselling service. After the busyness of the day, we return to Connect House. UpStream make use of the first floor of the building, with private counselling rooms for the young people and families that Bethany support. Martin, who manages the service, shows us around as Becky, his wife, arrives with their youngest. It’s a happy picture of family. This is a calm, safe and healing space for so many and I can feel that aura as I reflect on the stories I know of those who are referred to the UpStream service: young people who have faced so many battles and barriers before they even reach adulthood. I thank God for Martin and the support provided by his team.
The Bethany UpStream team provide counselling and therapeutic family support for young people in Glasgow and the West.
As we head to leave, I catch up with Mhairi, who works in the office downstairs with both our Connect to Community and Access through Advocacy services. She was one of the first people I met when I started work with Bethany. She remembers meeting my newborn online, three years ago; she asks after my family; we share stories of her 16- and 20-year-olds… It’s small chit chat but a moment that, in the context of the day, makes me feel grateful. Small connections, community, a feeling of being known, a sense of belonging… these are all things that can be easily taken for granted. These are things we all need.
My question at the end of the day is this: where does your sense of connection come from? Who is your support community? For Marina, for Toby, for Joe, for the young people that visit the UpStream counsellors, the answer is, in part, Bethany Christian Trust. Bethany works to facilitate these moments of community and personal connection for every individual that we support.
Today has been a wonderful opportunity to see firsthand the disproportionate impact of these everyday moments, and how they fit into Bethany’s vision of Ending Homelessness in Scotland.
This is what the ‘one person at a time’ aspect of Bethany’s mission statement looks like: a quick chat, a shared coffee, a helping hand, a supportive network.
Get in touch at supporters@bethanychristiantrust.com for more information about Bethany’s work in Glasgow, or check out this map of service locations across Scotland.