Raising awareness for successful partnerships - The Brick

The Brick entered the working in partnership award at the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) northern awards in 2019 to raise awareness for its successful partnership project in the Wigan and Leigh borough, and to gain recognition for the hard work of all the partner members involved in the project.

Alongside partners, at The Brick, we'd created the new partnership model - The Wigan and Leigh Homeless Partnership in 2019. The partnership delivered a new innovative approach to addressing homelessness, working with Wigan Council and partners, including Fur Clemt, Addaction and the Clinical Commissioning Group. The Wigan and Leigh Homeless Partnership’s aim was to achieve a local vision; to ensure that the Wigan and Leigh borough was in a stronger place to respond to homelessness.

This innovation, demonstrated by The Wigan and Leigh Homeless Partnership, resulted in the creation of the new night shelter in Wigan in 2019, which operated 7 days a week and offered ‘A Bed Every Night’ for anyone rough sleeping in the borough.

The application was very straightforward and did not take too much time to complete. The questions asked were relevant and straight to the point, therefore alleviating any need to waffle! I highly recommend anyone thinking of entering to do so, it was a wonderful experience. 

At The Brick, we feel that it is important to share award wins like these across our sector as the successes and the hard work demonstrated by charities, can inspire and motivate other charitable organisations to work together to develop innovative projects in their own region. In addition, we feel that it is essential to share these successes to recognise the hard work of all of our staff and volunteers, as quite simply we couldn’t do what we do without them.

We were all delighted at The Brick to win the CIH working in partnership award as it recognised the strength of our local homelessness partnership and the positive commitment of all the organisations and charities involved. This award raised awareness of the success of our approach and our collaboration and the commitment to each other, that contributed to the fantastic achievements in addressing rough sleeping in our Borough.

Winning also raised awareness for our work in achieving positive outcomes for individuals, and that of our local community.