CCP specialises in engaging and working with people at the extremes of society, people who have nowhere left to turn. We work with people who fall outside the remit of statutory services because they don’t fit the criteria, or who don’t score highly enough to qualify for help, or who have been excluded because they are deemed by others as being too difficult to work with.

We do not pick and choose our clients and we have operated a non-exclusion policy since CCP was formed in 1989. Engaging with "difficult" people, those whom nobody else will deal with, is what we do best.

We will also work with people who want and need help but who refuse to deal with statutory agencies. Their reasons for doing so are usually genuine and include fear of authority, suspicion, having being let down in the past and lack of faith in the “system’s” ability to make any difference to their lives. The latter is a very real problem for people with multiple complex issues. There are so many barriers to obtaining help from multiple agencies that many people simply give up before they receive all the support they need.

Where someone qualifies for the services of statutory agencies, we will always attempt to refer them to those services. However, we pick up the pieces if they refuse to engage with the agency, or if the agency refuses to work with them. Our services do not duplicate those of other agencies; rather we serve to complement and coordinate their work to provide people in need with an effective, holistic support service.

To achieve this, we created the successful CCP 1st Stop Information, Advice and Guidance Service. This is the gateway to CCP services and also brings together a range of independent specialist support agencies in a single, easily accessible location. Operating on a Triage basis, 1st Stop provides a unified, people-centred support service which ensures that people can receive the correct advice, first time, from multiple agencies, and that they have personalised support to enable them to act on advice they have been given.