One Small Thing's commitment to systemic change for women and their children in the justice system, has inspired us to build Hope Street.
Hope Street pilots a new approach to working with justice involved women. From within a healing, trauma-informed, residential environment, women and children have access to a range of specialist support. By taking a positive and compassionate approach, we aim to create a blueprint for change that can be replicated across the country and achieve better outcomes for women, their children and society.
Banner and carousel images by fotohaus Ltd.
Hope Street’s impact
our impact in 2023-24
Taken from our Annual Impact Report, you’ll learn all about how we’ve supported women and children in 2023/34, and hear how it has made a difference, in their own words.
Hope Street Diary
Follow our journey from when we first purchased the land for Hope Street, to one year of being in operation. These regular diary posts spanning four years, show how we took the idea of Hope Street, and transformed it into a living, breathing project for women affected by the justice system, and their children.
June 2024: One Year of Hope Street
It has now been one year since the official opening of Hope Street! We’ve been reflecting on all that has happened since we opened our doors, as well as the challenges and opportunities so far. Listen to a special podcast episode we’ve created to mark the occasion. And read about our highlights from the past year.
February 2024: Hope Street wins an award!
We are so delighted that Hope Street has won the RIBA 2024 MacEwen Award which celebrates ‘architecture for the common good’. The Award celebrates architecture with a greater purpose, and recognises projects that address the pressing social, economic, and environmental issues of our time, such as inclusion, sustainability, community building, and poverty alleviation.
January 2024
As the new year begins, we are remembering some of the key highlights from 2023, one of which (the biggest!) was the official opening of Hope Street which happened just over six months ago. We also speak to one of our Community Partners at Hope Street, to give you more of an insight into what it’s like to be part of this pioneering service.
OCTOBER 2023
Since we opened our doors at the end of June, our team's focus has been on welcoming women and our first mum and toddler to Hope Street. The team are working alongside women to support them to access and participate in our programme which includes support around issues such as recovery from trauma, mental wellbeing, relationships and substance use.
August 2023
On 27th June we welcomed Her Royal Highness The Princess of Wales to officially open Hope Street. During the visit, Her Royal Highness received a tour of the new buildings, met the team, supporters and partners who have driven the programme from design to build over the past six years and learned about the unique support residents will receive.
June 2023
We have now recruited our new Hope Street delivery team and they have been focusing on inducting and training – including four days of training with Dr Stephanie Covington who came over from the US to deliver for us. The Team have now moved on-site and are busily sorting furniture and items needed to equip the spaces.
March 2023
Our Hope Street build is now complete and we are now putting the finishing touches to the interior and starting the see the garden landscaping take shape. It's wonderful seeing the space transform into the trauma informed, gender specific environment envisaged years ago when we started designing Hope Street.
October 2022
In October we celebrated the ‘topping out’ of the Hub buildings. In construction, the term refers to the installation of the final piece of structure, or the completion of the roof on a building. This was a great opportunity to reflect on all the amazing progress that's been made so far, and to look forward to the future.
August 2022
We were delighted to have the roof lights fitted on the main hub building, giving us a real sense of how light will enhance the space. We also ran an event in parliament raising awareness of Hope Street, and the difference it will make for justice involved women and their children.
June 2022
We are excited to announce that on Monday 20th June 2022, we opened our first shared house in Southampton and welcomed our first resident! This is the first of a network of houses across Hampshire we plan to open for women and children, alongside our Hope Street residential hub due to be completed this year.
April 2022
The build of the Hope Street Hub and residential accommodation for women and their children is on track to be finished by the end of 2022 and ready to welcome women and children in the new year. Our first five bedroom Hope House will be complete in the next month.
February 2022
The new year has brought exciting progress at the Hope Street site. Building has continued at pace, with the timber frame of the residential building and Hub complete! The refurbishment work on our first move on house is progressing well, and the interior fit out has begun.
November 2021
We are thrilled to have received funding from the Garfield Weston Foundation and that Vivid have chosen us as their charity of the year, both of which continue to support our Hope Street hub for justice involved women and their children. In September, the One Small Thing team visited the site to see the build first-hand and children’s love and messages were hidden among the foundations.
August 2021
Work continues at pace and the build activity is starting to ramp up on site. The Hope Street site has now been fully cleared, secured and work on the foundations and groundworks started in July.
May 2021
Our team met regularly with the architects and designers, and we continued to consult with justice-involved women, local and national stakeholders and experts in the field of trauma to ensure we are staying true to our core ambition of creating a healing and restorative space for justice involved women.
March 2021
With planning permission for Hope Street secured, the build phase could now begin in earnest. The demolition of existing buildings had been completed and hoardings installed.
December 2020
After four years of planning and consulting, we were pleased to share that we completed on our Southampton site for Hope Street on 18th November.
To add to the excitement, on 3rd December, we completed on the purchase of the adjacent site to the Hope Street plot!
Contact hopestreet@onesmallthing.org.uk for any Hope Street questions.