Christmas can be a hard time for lots of people and even harder for those who for whatever reason cant spend it with their families. The young people placed with our supported lodgings service all have their own story for how they ended up here and ultimately away from their families. This can be through family breakdown, death of parents, or even just needing a place of safety or support. Christmas can have lots of happy memories for them but also some really sad ones.
Many families put troubles aside and make an extra special effort for the holiday which means some of our young people may return home for Christmas day, others will stay at their placements.
Our householders, who like everyone else have a million things to do at Christmas, always go over and above to ensure our young people have the best family Christmas possible. Lots of young people who have long since left the service still return to their Householders to have their Christmas dinner. Lisa, one of our householders who has been with our service for over 25 years and was infact a former MAP (Merseyside Accommodation Project - now known as Supported Lodgings) young person herself, spends her Christmas eve dropping of PJ’s for the children of the many young people her and her partner Mark have supported over the years. Last years count saw her visit 11 previous young people and she couldn’t imagine her Christmas Eve any other way now. This shows the level of dedication and care of our householders give long after the young person has gone onto independence. Every young person also receives a wrapped gift from the team to open up on Christmas Day alongside the gifts from their family hosts.
If you'd like to support a young person, you can apply to become a householder by clicking here
