Our Background
The Small House Project is operated by HJEM (Yem) Community Interest Company.
The Small House Project previously known as the ‘Dolls House Project’ was designed for group work. This connected the participant with others and the topic of home-making, with all the thoughts and feelings around home, family, place and belonging.
The skills learned through this bespoke course are accredited.
The Small House Project is fun, creative and engaging. The short course provides the opportunity to build confidence in all things to do with home making, designing and renovating. As well as being a creative opportunity for fun and learning, sometimes issues around home and housing can arise, they are dealt with carefully, giving opportunity for support through peer group mentoring and further referral if necessary.
At the Small House Project we share our wealth of years of experience to help everyone to move forward with creating home.. In learning new skills in a small space, individuals are encouraged to consider their own personal home space. Home improvement ideas are shared and encouraged, it doesn’t have to be daunting or expensive to improve home when you get creative. Expressing ideas on small scale, is easy to rectify or change if it doesn’t work.
The group work sessions have a proven track record. We have worked with housing associations, parents in school and many community groups. The project is aimed at men, women and families, all are welcome.
The course is run by skilled workers in group work from Occupational Therapists, Community Workers and Creative Practitioners.
Drawing on the theme of home, the sessions include forming your design ideas, where individuals are inspired and begin to prepare for design. The skills and disciplines engaged over six, ten and twelve week courses can reflect those for working on a real home renovation project. Furnishing are mini flat pack furniture on which wood finishing skills are taught and experimented with. The basics in hand stitching is taught and anything fancy is encouraged in making mini curtains and upholstery. Colour ways and design ideas are explored, painting and decorating, wallpapering, flooring all in miniature, helping to tackle fear factors around skills learning and inspiring imagination with real and rewarding outcomes. Designing, furnishing and finishing a Small House can be rewarding on many levels. People of all abilities can benefit from taking part, designing, fixing and fitting being taken into fine detail and vivid imagination, where you will.
The psycho dynamics of this workshop is powerful, helping the individual to move towards an improved set of skills for success in home making, building confidence, making friends and helps push towards new horizons which could include further training, college, apprenticeships and finding work… inspiring learning through creativity. Realising talents.
After completing the course, all participants usually want to keep their carefully invested in Small House. To enable this all must agree to completing a new house for the next participants, this may involve working with woodwork machinery where appropriate or simply assembling the components. This is an opportunity for further learning, further qualifications and further confidence building. Once completed the learner can keep their Small House for themselves and the next generation, with pride!
For further information about The Small House Project please email: