Riverside is committed to reaching out to some of the most marginalised people in society through its range of specialist outreach teams. We provide services to people who might not otherwise have access to those services. Our mobile, or outreach teams, meet those in need where they need them. We raise awareness of existing services.

Our pioneering Buddies programme – Street, Gate and Recovery Buddies, where people who overcome their street homelessness, addiction or offending behaviours now work as an integral part of our outreach teams to help support our customers – ensures our services are customer-focused.

We believe our Buddies are ‘experts by experience’ and bring a unique aspect to our outreach teams’ services. This customer involvement is key to ensuring our outreach services are effective. Another aspect to our outreach service – where a member of our team will accompany a customer to appointments and other activities outside of their scheme – e.g. to doctors’ appointments. Our crisis outreach services, enable a team members to act as advocates, when our customers are faced a crisis scenario.

For example.

• being admitted to hospital
• if a health crisis occurs
• or in a custody suite, where we act an appropriate adult if a client faces any criminal charges.