19-07-2025
Craig Smith on Homewards Coalition Trust and Forward Trust's work
Since those early days as a tenancy support worker, I have had the pleasure of having worked in and led services supporting some of the most vulnerable and excluded people across Wales.
Although the housing landscape has changed and brought new and increasing pressures and challenges, the single most powerful learning over the past 21+ years has been that when likeminded passionate and values-based people come together to look at a problem and involve and include people with lived experience great things can happen.
I joined Forward Trust in late 2022 and was attracted by the Forward vision as it really resonated with me and everything I have strived to offer in my services – 'Our vision is that anyone – whatever their history or circumstances – gets the opportunity and support to live a positive life that fulfils their potential, and to inspire others to follow the same path.'
This vision has underpinned everything we do and through developing positive effective working partnerships with HMPPS prison and probation colleagues, local authority homelessness teams, social housing and private rental sector landlords and a wide range of support services we have been able to have a real impact on the lives of people engaging with our service reducing the risk of homelessness and improve housing options available to men on probation and men returning to their communities after a prison sentence.
A few months ago our Camau team (Camau accommodation probation service - Forward Trust) came together to develop a local vision for our service which we hope will inspire others to create new and creative housing pathways for 'Our Vision - Everybody deserves a place to call home.'
We work with men on probation who are homeless or are at risk of homelessness to progress through their housing journey and take steps towards stable accommodation. In doing this we will connect them to skills, options and services that will empower them to have ownership of their housing journey. Our service supports, informs and empowers our neighbours in custody and the community, on every step of their journey to regain or retain housing and reach their full potential.
I recently had the great pleasure of representing Forward Trust at the recent Homewards: Delivering Change Together event in Sheffield to celebrate the second anniversary of the Homewards programme, and met some truly inspirational colleagues from across the UK and a clear message hit home throughout the day 'Together we can end homelessness'.
The work of the Homewards delivery partners across the six locations is having an immediate and lasting impact on the communities in which they are being delivered. It's a privilege to be involved in creating a supportive, collaborative partnership of delivery partners with a shared vision of making homelessness rare, brief and unrepeated and I look forward working with colleagues to create new solutions together.
Craig Smith is the senior operations manager (Wales) - Commissioned Rehabilitative Services at The Forwards Trust, a Homewards Newport Coalition member.
