Who we are
We are committed to reducing deprivation and exclusion and to improving people’s well-being.
Our vision, mission and values
Our vision
Our vision is for people of all ages to be safe, building ambitions for the future and reaching towards their full potential.
Our mission
Humankind creates services and support to meet people’s complex health and social needs, helping them to build healthier lives that have meaning and value for themselves and their families. We support local people to create stronger, better-connected communities.
Our values
Honest: we are open and realistic, building trusted relationships in which we challenge, collaborate and change
Committed: we are passionate about being the best that we can be, and we do this by keeping people at the heart of everything that we do
Inventive: we are ambitious, drawing together skills and resources to innovate and adapt in determined pursuit of our mission.
Reducing deprivation and exclusion
Humankind is committed to reducing deprivation and exclusion and to improving people’s well being.
We have over 1,800 employees and around 100 volunteers providing services for over 90,000 people. Our specialist services include substance use, clinical, employment training and education, housing services, housing support and health, young people and families services.
We also offer affordable accommodation as a Registered Social Landlord via Humankind Housing and promote volunteering/employment opportunities through MoreTime UK, Humankind’s social enterprise.
Meet our executive team
Meet our trustees
Being Human: a strategy for everyone
Our five-year strategy, Being Human, is centred on people: the people who use our services, their families, and the communities they are part of. It is full of ambition but remains anchored in Humankind’s mission and built on the foundation we have built together in the last five years.
We are proud of the success of our previous five-year strategy, which saw Humankind develop as a national charity and support over 90,000 people in 2021/22. To shape our new strategy, we listened to over 3,300 people: employees, those we support and our valued delivery partners.
Our ambition for the next five years is to drive radical change so people impacted by drugs, alcohol and related issues experience fairer chances to flourish in their communities.
We are extremely excited about what the future holds for the people we support. We will support more people at different points of need through local services embedded as community assets and partnerships that challenge the status quo.
Working Together strategy
Working Together is an approach to the way that we work to ensure that Humankind staff and volunteers collaborate effectively with people who have experience our services. By partnering in this way we can find solutions, share responsibilities and make decisions, we can continue to grow and ensure that everybody’s strengths and experiences are reflected. Working Together is at the core of who we are and how we operate as a charity and a community.
Impact Report 2022/23
Our latest downloadable report highlights our positive impact on the people and communities we serve and explains our key achievements, activity and growth.
Regulated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC)
We are proud that all of our services across England are rated either ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
Read more about our CQC ratings
About our History
Humankind was first listed as a registered charity and company in 1984. Back then, we were called Durham Training and Enterprise and focused primarily on vocational preparation programmes for the young, long-term unemployed in County Durham.
In the late 1980s, we began working with youth and adult offenders. This then led the development of innovative services for people who were homeless through the establishment of ‘accommodation registers’ and independent living support for care leavers.
In 1992, to reflect our broadening footprint, we changed our name to DISC – Developing Initiatives for Support in the Community. We continued to develop the range of spread of services that we deliver. However, in the summer of 2015 we embarked on an exercise with our staff and service users to explore our true values, and to develop a mission and vision for our organisation that really reflects what we are today. Almost three years later, that project evolved and culminated in a re-brand to Humankind.
In April, 2019, Humankind merged with London-based charity Blenheim CDP and in April, 2020, EDP joined us a subsidiary to form a new organisation with national reach, focused on addressing health and social inequalities across the country.
