The Brew Crew Café delivers support and encouragement for individuals living with addiction. Designed, managed and delivered by the Lived Experience Collective, Brew Crew offers a unique blend of compassion, practical assistance, and community engagement, making it a vital resource for helping people with addiction or homelessness.
Providing a Supportive Environment
At Brew Crew Café, people facing the challenges of addiction or homelessness find more than just a place to grab a cup of coffee and a breakfast. They discover a welcoming and non-judgmental environment where their struggles are understood and their journeys towards recovery are supported. The Lived Experience Collective, whose members have first-hand experience with addiction ensures that guests feel valued, heard, and empowered to take positive steps forward.
Fostering Hope and Empowerment
One of Brew Crew’s primary objectives is to instil hope in its guests and empower them to pursue a path of recovery. Through peer support, regular visits from other specialist agencies and with support from Herring House Trust, individuals are helped to find the tools and resources needed to navigate their recovery journey. Brew Crew helps inspire guests to imagine a future without addiction.
Building Strong Partnerships
Understanding that addiction recovery is complex, Brew Crew works closely with other agencies to offer better support for its guests. By teaming up with different service providers, Brew Crew ensures guests have access to a variety of resources and services that meet their specific needs. These partnerships strengthen the support network and improve the overall effectiveness of recovery efforts.
In 2023, Norfolk County Council grant funded the Lived Experience Team to join the Rough Sleeper Drug and Alcohol Treatment Grant/RISE Initiative. The initiative is aimed at facilitating access to and participation in drug and alcohol treatment services for individuals either vulnerable to or currently experiencing rough sleeping or homelessness. Individuals may have enduring mental health issues and need access to care. Within this framework, our role entails contributing the Lived Experience component to the project; functioning as a critical friend offering our knowledge and expertise as those who have lived the experience of needing services. Our work has been guided by the needs of the people in the RISE Initiative and one of our key projects has been the creation of the Brew Crew Café. This funding helps us deliver this project and contributes to the development of our Peer Support Volunteers within the Lived Experience Collective. The grant enables Herring House Trust to support the Collective as it develops its response to the needs of the people supported through the RISE Initiative.
The Brew Crew gives me an hour of safety
Encouraging Regular Engagement
To incentivise regular attendance and engagement with its services, Brew Crew employs a well-received approach, offering guests a £5 Greggs voucher upon their fourth visit. This gesture not only acknowledges and appreciates guests’ commitment to their recovery journey but also serves as a tangible incentive for continued engagement with Brew Crew’s support network.
Brew Crew Café shows that community-driven efforts can make a real difference in tackling addiction and homelessness. By offering a supportive space, building hope, working with other partners, and encouraging regular involvement, Brew Crew is helping people dealing with addiction in a meaningful way.
As a result of its success, Brew Crew has moved to bigger premises at a local church to allow for the growing number of guests they are welcoming. This location is more central so the hope is that Brew crew will continue to grow and be able to help more people to access services and move forward to building safer, stronger foundations to enable them to believe they can find a life outside of addiction.
Since the launch of the Brew Crew in January 2023, sessions have run weekly, offering 208 hours of support to 118 people. Over 1456 hot drinks have been served and now the group welcomes an average of 21 guests per week to join them in a hearty breakfast. 1248 hours of volunteer time has been offered, 9 people who came for support have been housed by Herring House Trust. 3 people became experts by experience and joined the Lived Experience Collective.
208 hours of support
to 118 people
1456 hot drinks
have been served
21 guests per week
have joined us for breakfast
3 people became experts by experience
and joined The Lived Experience Collective
Brew Crew – our Impact
Total customers attended to date- 118 with over 77 of those people attending multiple times, seeking peer support and access to services.
With help from specialist services attending Brew Crew:-
Peer Support and engagement with the Lived Experience Volunteers has resulted in:
The Lived Experience Volunteers signposted:-
1 lady who is finds social groups challenging has managed to stay engaged with Brew Crew and attend most weeks.
1 man would only attend for five minutes a year ago and now he attends weekly for the whole session.
We get to work alongside other agencies feeling like an equal. We have been asked our views on homeless strategies and we have influence through being part of the Lived Experience Collective