The Bridge 2 Collaboration Welcomes Cross Productions as their Newest Member at Today’s Networking Event

The Bridge 2 Collaboration members met today with local businesses at the Marriott Hotel Leicester to discuss real issues around youth and their families.

Businesses came together from over the East Midlands to see what they could offer to help the cause, including work experience, safe spaces to have meetings; and who else they knew who could help.

The Bridge 2 Collaboration is the newest partnership in Leicestershire with exclusive offers to build, nurture and promote your business, whilst ensuring that we all have a safe place to call home. Businesses and charities need to work together to share their expertise and knowledge – as only together can we tackle challenges in our local communities to implement long-term, sustainable, and positive changes. This includes preventing homelessness to build resilient and compassionate communities where individuals thrive in safe and secure homes.

In 2020, Centrepoint recorded 553 young people in Leicester who approached the local authority as homeless or at risk of homelessness. The impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic has also seen an increase in the number of young people suffering from mental health issues and therefore at risk of becoming homeless. The breakdown of family relationships is the number one cause of youth homelessness, and the COVID-19 crisis exacerbated tensions within families, through financial constraints and isolation rules. In our Young People & Families services, this all has resulted in more referrals, long waiting lists and our services becoming overstretched.

These statistics were shared by frontline staff from The Bridge, who told their experiences and client stories of how Young People are benefiting from the services. “Every family has their own issues”, one frontline staff member explained, “but it is our job to help the families have mutual understanding and overcome the issues, to prevent the young person’s future homelessness”.

Helping in combat local issues like these, the event saw the newest member to the partnership, Evan-May Gillott from Cross Productions, be presented with her certificate from The Bridge’s Chair of Trustees Jay Webb.

Evan-May told the local businesses of her enthusiasm to join the network:  “It is great to be involved in such an initiative. We actually sat and talked with other businesses today and came up with solutions to real life issues for youths within Leicester. These included work experience opportunities, mental health signposting, safe spaces for meetings to be supplied over summer holidays and much more.

"You don’t actually realise what goes into preventing people from becoming homeless. It’s true what they say, you are only one pay packet from becoming homeless. Until today I didn’t realise I was homeless at one point of my life in the form of sofa surfing. If I had half the help these guys offer, I couldn’t imagine how much easier my late teens would have been. All in all, I cannot wait to get stuck in and see what else Cross as a company and myself can do for such a great and thoughtful charity.”

The next Bridge2Collaboration event ‘Our Place To Call Home’ will be held on Tuesday 20^th September, will be located in a stunning contemporary industrial loft located in the heart of Loughborough - the perfect a backdrop for our innovative collaboration to trail blaze toward a future without homelessness. We hope to see you there!

Don’t miss out on the landmark The Bridge 2 Collaboration lunch meeting that inspires true, innovative change across the East Midlands. Book your place now: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/our-place-to-call-home-the-bridge-2-collaboration-networking-lunch-tickets-374375626577