Here's a bit more info behind the article that started this thread, sent to me by Josie. Sorry for any duplication.
One25 have been running for over 16 years, supporting vulnerable women to break free from street sex-work, abuse and addiction and rebuild their lives in the community with their families.
We go out at night to support around 200 sex-working women with basic needs such as food (many are malnourished) and first aid and support them in crisis e.g. in the last year we took a woman going into labour in an alleyway to hospital. We also run a drop-in centre where they can get a lunch, meet drugs workers, a doctor, pre-natal support, learn skills from budgeting to pottery. They can also meet with our five-strong casework team who support them with pregnancy and birth, getting a safe roof over their heads, getting off drugs, escaping domestic violence and much more ? the caseworkers also support around 90 women in recovery with issues such as positive parenting, negotiating going back into education with childcare, accessing counselling and support groups, etc. And we did have Naomi House, our addiction treatment home for mums with babies but this is closing next week.
One25 has won national awards (Guardian Charity Award 2010, Centre for Social Justice 2011, GlaxoSmithKline Health IMPACT award 2010) but we don't have a big national awareness of our work or how we struggle to get funding to keep our services open in order to save these women?s lives and give them a chance for a better life with their families. You can find out a little more on our website www.one25.org.uk or FB/Twitter (@one25charity).
Naomi House
We opened Naomi House three years ago when we were seeing the majority of our beneficiaries becoming mothers but lose their child to care because there was nowhere in the city for them to get the intensive help needed to come off drugs, exit the streets, leave abusive relationships and learn the parenting and life skills needed to safely keep their child. Naomi House was the only drug treatment home in the country for mothers escaping street sex-work and addiction.
With our last resident moving out drug-free and with her child this week, we?re proud to say that in the last year of its service, three quarters of the mums left drug-free and with their children (it was 2/3 in the Guardian article, but that's now increased). The national average for people leaving drug treatment is just 30% in comparison and this doesn't take into account that the mums at Naomi House have had to deal with new motherhood on top of totally changing their lives. Your can imagine how difficult it is to be a new single mum, let alone at the same time take part in an intensive 24/7 treatment programme! The families have been so courageous and committed to overcoming their issues in order to stay together.
Naomi House sadly will definitely close
The funding difficulties weren't quite as clear cut as The Guardian may have implied. The centre costs c£240,000 to run for up to 16 families a year, as it offers 24/7 intensive support. As your bloggers have recognised, costs of removing babies and annual foster care for these families are far higher than this and the life chances of children growing up in care are just not nearly as good as when a child can stay safely and happily in their mum's care.
But the closure wasn't strictly down to just cuts. Rather that Naomi House was so unique as a mum and baby drug treatment home that social services in each referring council didn't have the systems in place to fund places it ? we only had five families funded by social services in the last year ? and this mostly thanks to Bristol City Council?s hard work at supporting Naomi House in the face of its established systems - when we needed sixteen, so we?ve had to fund other families from our limited donations, fundraising events and small voluntary grants ? this has really stripped our reserves and meant we had to close in order to keep our other work with women (many of whom are mothers) safe from closure.
To explain the social services funding system: mum and baby places are funded separately by two different social service departments (adult drug services and children and young peoples services) in each council, all of whom have different priorities and systems to each other and to Naomi House. With women-only its difficult enough to get different councils? social services to hold the same priorities as ours and fund these women to go through drug treatment and get the chance to escape their damaging lifestyle: many have had their budgets slashed and choose those they think have the best chance of success at leaving drug free and in the shortest space of time. With treatment for women with children (unheard of!) it?s near impossible to get each department to share priorities and systems. Adult teams say 'we won't agree to give Naomi House funding until children's services say they will pay for the baby's place' and children teams say 'we won't decide to fund the baby?s place until baby is almost born' by which time they have often decided that the heavily pregnant woman won't be able keep the baby.
Another problem is that the austerity climate means that social services can only fund really short stays at places like Naomi House - only 12 weeks to turn your whole life around, give birth and quickly become a good mum! Losing other sources of funding (housing benefit for the mums, no appropriate government grants for our work in the last 21 months, etc) was the final blow for us and we had to close.
It's very difficult to change whole systems overnight to accommodate a mother and baby home for mums escaping addiction and the streets and we have found that right now we can?t do it. Larger, national charities have tried addiction treatment for mums with babies (Addaction, ARA) and they have had to close through funding issues too, which leaves just Trevi House in Plymouth as the only provision in the country for the many mums desperate for this service.