Place – Humankind

Humankind publishes Impact Report for 2022/23

Jack Keery

We are proud to publish our annual report detailing the impact Humankind had on people and communities across England throughout 2022/23.

Last year, we supported 106,558 people to achieve their goals and fulfil their potential.

Every five minutes, an individual accesses one of our services located across our regional footprint of the North East, Bradford, Leeds and North Yorkshire, the North West, South Yorkshire, Calderdale and the Midlands, London and the South, or the South West.

Our workforce – comprised of 2,200 employees and 250 volunteers – is central to our aim of reducing deprivation and exclusion through a range of specialist services provided to young people, families, and adults. These specialist services work across health and wellbeing, drug and alcohol recovery, criminal justice services, housing and independent living, and education and employment.

The Impact Report shares a selection of the many accomplishments from our organisation over the year, including reflections from our working together survey, that 3,750 people who access our services took part in:

  • 97% of people who access our services said they feel respected by our staff.
  • 95% of people said they receive the support they need from us.
  • 95% of people believe our staff have the right skills to support them to meet their goals.

We also surveyed people who work for Humankind, providing vital support every day:

  • 97% felt that they understood the aims of Humankind.
  • 95% understood how what they do contributes to our organisation’s goals.
  • 94% felt supported by their colleagues.
  • 92% found their work interesting and rewarding with 89% stating that the purpose of the organisation made them feel good about their work.

Paul Townsley, Chief Executive Officer at Humankind, said: “It’s the privilege of my career to lead our charity – and it’s the shared stories of the 106,000 people we supported in 2022/23 and our workforce that tell the whole tale.

“I’m proud to share our Impact Report 2022/23 and would like to thank my colleagues for their hard work and dedication, and promise the people we serve we’ll always strive to support and enable them as best we can. We are, and will remain, all about people. We are Humankind.”

Read the Humankind Impact Report 22/23

Being Human: our new five-year strategy

Jack Keery

Our new five-year strategy, Being Human, is centered on people: the people who use our services, their families, and the communities they are part of.  

Our ambition is to drive radical change, so people impacted by drugs, alcohol and related issues experience fairer chances to flourish in their communities. 

Read Being Human: a strategy for everyone.

A message from Paul Townsley, Humankind CEO:  

I am extremely excited about Being Human and what the future holds for the people we support. When developing our strategy we kept at the forefront of our minds our vision – that we want to see a world where everyone has a fair chance to be safe, build ambitions for the future and reach their full potential.  

We wanted this strategy to stretch us and to increase our impact. It is focused on the communities and people we work with, and I am confident that we will support more people through local services embedded in their communities and partnerships that challenge the status quo. We are proud to be a national charity made up of local services. We will develop the necessary partnerships to work with communities to make sure that local needs are met and that we are there for the long term.   

When we launched Being Human internally our ambition of driving radical change really struck a chord and started some interesting conversations. Everyone got behind the vision to make a real difference to the people we work with and recognised that we must continue to develop and grow as an organisation to do that.   

An image which describes the three goals in Humankind's new 5 year strategy. People: we will support more poeple at different points of need, from prevention, to impactful services, to have fair chances for a home, a job and purpose. Place: we will deliver local services that become embedded as assets to help build stronger, more confident communities. Partnerships: we will build partnerships that challenge the status quo to bring positive change for the people we support.

To shape our strategy, we listened to over 3,300 people: the people we support, our colleagues and our valued delivery partners. We learnt a lot, and the strategy has genuinely been based on listening to that feedback. Thank you to everyone that contributed, we couldn’t have done it without you.   

We want to keep listening and in the coming months will be collecting feedback on what people think about the strategy.   

Having joined DISC in July 2015 as Chief Executive, I am hugely proud of the success of our previous five-year strategy, which helped us evolve into Humankind, grow and support over 90,000 people last year. Being Human builds on these solid foundations and I’m looking forward to working with our expert and committed teams and the people we support to deliver it.

Read Being Human: a strategy for everyone.