In our monthly spotlight on organisations making a difference in Sheffield, Exposed’s Ellie Ashton chats with Lexy Webster of Burton Street Foundation. As a Community Benefit Society, Burton Street serves as a crucial local hub, hosting businesses and charities while also offering a broad spectrum of life-changing disability services.
It’s their idea, their dream, their vision, and we just help that come to life.
Originally Langsett Road School, Burton Street faced demolition in 1995 but was saved by community leader, Jim Taylor, forming the Burton Street Foundation. Now a bustling community hub, it serves around 2,500 people weekly, hosting numerous events and activities. Providing disability services to 250 clients and housing 14 local businesses along with 35 charities and community groups, Burton Street maintains five buildings across three sites, including the largest indoor community space in the area. Mostly based in Hillsborough, these sites include rooms for arts and crafts, music, sports and many more.
Who uses Burton Street Foundation?
Burton Street Foundation serves primarily as a community centre as well as a leading provider of disability day services in Sheffield. We have a really good reputation for our disability services; I’d heard about it long before working here just because of the quality of care it provides. We also have a lot of social enterprise businesses that work from our site as well, so it’s kind of a community hub too.
I’ve heard a bit about the Art Skills and Articulate Sessions that Burton Street provides, and how that recently has helped your client, Adnarn, to create ‘Solo’, his upcoming exhibition. Could you tell me a little bit more about these sessions?
These sessions are designed around the pillars of wellbeing from the NHS, focusing on physical, emotional and social wellbeing. All of our sessions have targets to help all of our clients in exploring independence and advocacy in their own way. This could be anything like doing a catwalk fashion show for fun and learning to put the garments together. We also have a radio group where they interview people – for example, we’ve had Phil Oakey in the past. Our YouTube is full of the different video editing they’ve done.
I’ve looked at the YouTube channel. It’s always being updated with interesting bits and bobs!
Yeah, I’m always getting awesome videos in my inbox, where clients have edited themselves doing all kinds of stuff. They are so creative! Creativity is really what underpins our pillars – it’s at the heart of everything we do – and that really comes into play when you look at our tagline: ‘Everyone has a part to play’.
And how are these activities tailored to meet the diverse needs of your clients?
Activities are categorized under different teams within Burton Street, each focusing on specific areas such as focused support, individual support, building independence, promoting independence or addressing complex needs – we then also have a children and young people service. So, when somebody comes to us, we will assess which team is the right team for them and we can focus on how they want to thrive.
Can you talk us through some of the positive impacts this support can have?
As we’ve mentioned, Adnarn’s ‘Solo’ show is a perfect example. Just by being given complete creative freedom, and having people to encourage and support him, he has been able to completely develop his own art style to the point where he can now do a solo show. There’s also a story about another one of our clients, Craig. We’d taken Craig to one of our events – we’d had a pop-up cinema to celebrate another one of our guys going to the Special Olympics – and on the way out of the event they went down to the train station Craig said, “I’ve never been on a train” and we were like “What? Craig’s never been on a train!” From that moment, his support workers made it their mission to take Craig on this big day out. Bit by bit they took him on little trips all through the countryside until one day in summer, his support workers took him on a big trip to Cleethorpes. He absolutely loved it; he was in his element!
I saw Burton Street Did a ‘Bowie Night’ a few of months back – which I’m sure was very fun. How do you come up with these nights?
This particular event was created by a guy named Isaac. He really wanted to do a Bowie Night, so I met with him and showed him how to use Eventbrite; we helped to get catering and provided marketing support as well. So, really it was his event, and we just helped to facilitate it. Usually with these events, support workers come to me with an idea that they think the clients will love and I will be determined to make it happen. That’s all we are – a facilitator. It’s their idea, their dream, their vision, and we just help that come to life.
Are there any upcoming events that you are excited about?
Yes! A big one for us is “Britain’s Got Talent’, which we put on every year in our Bamford Park building – which is huge, with a big stage, and its own bar. People from all over the community gather to see the great level of talent we have here. There’s everything from dancing, singing, magic acts, drag acts – all sorts! We also have the Christmas fair every year, which is the biggest fundraiser we do. All of the money we raise for that goes back into Burton Street.
What other organisations do you collaborate with?
We have strong ties with Sheffield’s social enterprise sector, and we’ll soon be hosting a luncheon chat with our Managing Director to discuss the experiences of running a social enterprise. Additionally, we work closely with the council and also partner with a charity abroad. This charity is MToTo Junior School in Uganda, which interestingly is led by the guy who essentially saved Burton Street, Jim Taylor. We also work with a lot of different community centres in Sheffield including the Medina Mosque. We actively try to get involved with what the future of Sheffield is going to look like.
Finally, what is the most rewarding thing about working with The Burton Street Foundation?
There’s so much joy in Burton Street! I’ve never worked somewhere where I can feel such a connection with all my colleagues as well as clients. I don’t do any client-facing work and every single one of them knows me, they all come to see me regularly and it’s an amazing feeling. It’s definitely got a vibe about it that’s completely different to anywhere else I’ve been. It’s not a workplace, it’s a community.
burtonstreet.org.uk
@burtonstreetfoundation
