How We Do It

Valuing People

Providing support for vulnerable people is about more than just delivering services that provide support, advice and advocacy for our clients.  We get our real satisfaction from supporting individuals to change their lives for the better.  And all of our staff are personally committed to supporting them throughout this process.

Our staff often develop enduring and trusting relationships with clients throughout their involvement with Caer Las, and sometimes for long after.  This personal and ‘person-centred’ approach is essential in working together to improve things. 

We provide the infrastructure for change through identifying and sourcing appropriate services, benefits, opportunities and social activities.  Clients are then encouraged and supported, building the emotional strength and confidence to make the necessary changes to turn their lives around.

There’s no better reward for our work than when clients tell us they feel genuinely valued and cared for by us.

Listening and learning

For over 30 years we have listened, learned and gained valuable experience in the field of vulnerability and social exclusion. 

We’ve learned that treating only the symptoms of vulnerability can result in limited or temporary outcomes.  For example, giving a home to a person who is in a cycle of repeated homelessness may not break their established pattern of vulnerability.  Usually, this is because the pattern is rooted in more than one issue and in complex causes.  Also, each person’s circumstances are unique, as is their capacity and desire to change them.

Raising Expectations

Vulnerability is often linked to harmful events and experiences in a person’s life.  The impact of negative experiences can easily cause someone to lose their sense of identity and value as a person.  This is why rebuilding a sense of positive identity is fundamental to our approach.  We’ve come to place increasing emphasis on ‘the person’, rather than their issues, and on the experience, insight and aspirations that each individual can draw on to help them move forward, whatever their circumstances.  We can then work together to find the right mix of opportunities, services and support

In a nutshell, we encourage people to ASPIRE (Achieve a Sense of Positive Identity and Raised Expectations)

Creating Opportunities

Identifying the right opportunities for people is critical to our person-centred approach and requires understanding, experience and expertise.  But although we have many years of experience, we don’t consider ourselves ‘experts’.  The real experts in understanding the lived reality of social exclusion and vulnerability are the people experiencing it. 

An important part of our role, therefore, is to support people in defining the issues from their perspective and empower them to use their insight, skills and knowledge to positive effect and influence.  This influence may then be applied in two ways.  At a personal level, it can help the individual make positive changes in their own circumstances.  At a societal level it can contribute to wider social action to frame, inform and shape debates on future policy and practice.