Dan Northover grew up in the south west.

“My parents were both professionals, a doctor and lawyer.”
His family were embedded in charity work through their church.

Combining both worlds, Dan trained as a professional – an accountant – but only to further his charitable ambition: “I always wanted to go into this area of innovating in the charity sector and been intrigued about how to help people well, but I wanted that technical foundation to be able to do that.”

Dan studied at Durham university; he got involved in helping the homeless after being struck by the inequalities he saw in the area.

“I got to know people who were rough sleeping. I’d spent time chatting to them, and could see there were different opportunities to volunteer for things like soup runs or food banks, giving people stuff, but it wasn’t helping people to move on, it was just removing that urgent need.”
He recalls cooking a ‘really rubbish’ pasta bake for a homeless man who turned out to have been a chef in a five-star hotel before. Dan says, “The dynamic was all wrong.”
Twelve years ago, Dan co-founded the charity, Handcrafted Projects.

“Handcrafted is about getting alongside people to see the potential, see the opportunity, and give them opportunity.”
He explains: “We started off just doing woodwork with people, and ended up eating meals and cooking together. So now we’re running a café. We ended up helping people with housing issues. So now we’re doing housing. We saw there were particular needs with care leavers, and particular needs with young asylum seekers, so responded to that. That principle of believing in people and trying to unlock the right opportunity for them can take you in so many directions, and that’s what we’re open to.”

Handcrafted Projects deliver training, support, housing, and ‘opportunities’: “Opportunities for people to try something that they wouldn’t normally have the chance to try.”
Dan explains: “For me, it’s very personal. We’re a faith-based charity, and a lot of that is rooted in believing in people who have been written off by everyone else – people right on the edges of society; a belief that everyone – everyone – has value, regardless.”

Its model revolves around community hubs.

“Each hub will have various creative activities that people can get involved with, things like cooking, carpentry, crafts – opportunities to do some sort of social enterprise.”

They have four hubs. Each is linked to circa 20 houses, providing homes for those at risk, with a team of support workers. Around 60 people a day are engaged across the hubs: “It’s not just one thing they need help with, it’s a holistic approach to individuals.”

Key Fund invested £115k loan and £34,500 grant to help Handcrafted Project purchase two new buildings.
“We are in the process of launching our fifth hub in Sunderland. We’re on 70 houses at the moment, and hoping to this year work up towards having 100 houses across five hubs.”

Financially, it brings in revenue from various sources: housing benefits, rental income, adult learning contracts, grant income and trading; last year its turnover was £1.5m
“We have 30 staff, 22 full-time equivalent – we’ve grown relatively rapidly in the last couple of years. We have low turnover of staff as we’re a very values-driven organisation with a committed staff team.”

They measure impact across five areas:

Living space: having somewhere safe they can call home;
Self-confidence: believing they have something to offer;
Coping strategies: ways to deal with the challenges of life;
Social networks: a positive community of support around them, and; Meaningful use of time.

Evidence of this impact is collated by asking how the individual they’re supporting feels, how their support worker says they’re doing, and looking at data – such as, how long a tenancy has been sustained, or how long they’ve avoided re-offending, or relapsing.

Their focus includes those affected by domestic abuse and prison leavers. One hub focusses on young asylum seekers and care leavers, which resonates with Dan. It currently supports 21 asylum seekers, and 12 care leavers.

Dan says: “I’m also a foster and adoptive parent, and have children with disabilities. From my experience of being a foster carer, they’re supported for complex needs up until their 18th birthday. When they turn 18, there’s a stark cliff edge, because the statutory obligation changes.”
Complex issues, he says, are often undiagnosed mental health issues, resulting in self-destructive and suicidal behaviours.

“What we see again and again is young people turning 18 and ending up in very negative situations – homeless, or in abusive relationships, or gang violence. They can be very vulnerable to being criminally and sexually exploited, or using illegal substances to self-medicate. That’s why this is something we’re particularly focussing on.”

Young asylum seekers are also a rising issue.

Dan explains: “Lots of young people are being placed by the Home Office in the north east, but actually the cultural integration work is really hard, because it’s not a diverse area; there are no mosques for example in the whole county of Durham.”

This he says, leaves them vulnerable, particularly to criminal exploitation, as they’re not engaged in a positive community.

It’s about catching people at key ‘transition points’ in life.

“One simple thing we do is supporting people through transition points – so not saying the day people turn 18 that support has to cut off, or for asylum seekers the day they get leave to remain they have to move out. A lot of the reasons that happens is for financial reasons, which is why we’re trying to build that more holistic financial model, which is where Key Fund come in,” Dan says. “We’re trying to build a more innovative financial model which means we don’t have to kick someone out when they turn 18.”

Handcrafted work alongside rehabs, recovery projects, probation, and social services.

“When you go out to the towns and villages, there’s often very little opportunity to break that cycle and find positive activities. So, when we base ourselves in areas and open a community cafe or a workshop, there’s such an appetite and need.”

The main issue he feels is isolation.

“All have their own experiences, which can be neurodivergence, offending, addiction. We focus on lasting transformation, and empowering people to maintain stability and become actively involved in their community.”
Future challenges are, he says, ‘significant’ but he’s hopeful.

“The right ideas are out there. The more people that get behind them, resource them, and put time and money in, the more we can support people better and see a real difference.

Dan adds: “People should never be written off, we just have to keep trying different things, which is why I’m always open to new ideas, and always want to keep innovating.”

Ben, 18, is a care leaver.

“I was adopted at 16 months old, but a few days after my 17th birthday, my relationship with my adopted parent’s broke down.”

In the space of one year, Ben was moved 20 times, living with different foster carers.

“It didn’t go well. I got beat up there.” The last home he was in was with other care leavers. “Not many housing providers could deal with my mental health. I do quite a lot of suicide attempts. I self-harm. I take overdoses. Since joining Handcrafted, I’ve not done an overdose, although I’ve self-harmed.”

Handcrafted gave him a flat to live in.

“I moved into a flat upstairs from their café on the 3 January. That was the date of my eviction from my last place. If I hadn’t gotten this place, I’d have been back on the streets. Literally from turning 18, you get nowt. I’m trying my hardest not to swear! So, if Handcrafted wasn’t there, I’d probably be living under a bridge, or possibly dead.”

“It’s been tough to settle in. With all the change, I think how long is it going to be till I move again? All the moving has broken my trust. It’s given me a bit of trauma, and makes me think, how long until someone else is going to give up on me?”

“It is hard to grow up like this. You do feel unwanted. You do feel suicidal. You do feel like you’re never going to be loved again. But there’s always that one person who will love you, like, everyone has that one person who loves them.”

For Ben, that one person is his support worker at Handcrafted, Neil.

“Me and Neil have got an unbreakable bond, even though I’ve only been living here since January. Yeah, we have our ups and downs, but he’s a really canny bloke.
“He’s my main support worker. He does an intensive programme with me, and checks on me every morning. He takes that extra step to make sure I’m okay.”

“He’s quite a big bloke, so he looks scary but he’s really soft, and like just caring. He’ll go one step further than everyone else; he’ll put his neck on the line for you. he has had some lived experience, so understands.”
Ben is due to start woodwork workshops to help his mental health.

“I get on with all of them here. I’ll go down to the café, and even the volunteers I get on with.

He recently completed the ‘Xtreme Character Challenge’ with Handcrafted, climbing three mountains in Scotland in 72 hours.

Ben said it was a struggle, not just physically. Dan, who runs Handcrafted went on the challenge with him.
“I did go into a crisis and Dan came running after me. He wouldn’t leave my side. I kept saying, ‘just leave me alone, leave me alone,’ but he stayed by my side. It’s not what he said, it’s what he did. Even though I was bursting into tears, he was just sitting there, saying, ‘do you need a hug?’ I did need a hug. As I felt I had no-one at that time.”

Ben was given the option to walk around the mountain, rather than climb it.

“I said no, I want to finish this. A lot of people were inspired by my story. It was tough, but I feel like I’ve achieved something and if I can achieve that, I can achieve almost anything. It just takes one thing to affect your mind. Like, people say, you’ll never achieve ‘owt, I say sod them; I have achieved something, and I will achieve a lot more in this life.”

Now, he says he feels positive about his future.
“I’m really positive about it, because I’m going back to college hopefully to study health and social care. I want to make a difference to people’s lives. People with mental health are just overlooked it feels. There’s no funding, the NHS is really struggling, I’m going to try and push for that funding. One in four people suffer from mental health.”
The bond with his adopted parents has, he says, improved.
“It’s been hard, but things are starting to turn a corner now.”

“You can’t look in the rear-view mirror, you’ve got to look in the forward mirror. You can’t change the past, but you can the future.”