Meeting the needs of homeless young people in Gloucestershire Moira Pratt Commissioning Manager (Strategic Information) Children and Young People’s Directorate Gloucestershire County Council

Focus: To understand the position in Gloucestershire with regard to homelessness among children and young people (CYP) and youth housing provision. To establish if, and how well, we are meeting the needs of homeless YP in the county

Difficulty in obtaining consistent data for the 2007 Needs Analysis Recent JAR inspection stated: ‘ The range and quality of accommodation for care leavers is adequate although the availability of sheltered and supported housing in some parts of the county is insufficient to meet all needs. There is very little emergency accommodation available and in some rare cases, bed and breakfast accommodation is used, which is inappropriate.’ Why homelessness?

Challenges Two-tier authority - six district councils Politics Partnership working Locating and understanding the data What are the questions? Do we have what we need to find the answers?

Initial meetings/interviews –Identify one or two key officers –Early exploratory discussions –Design a semi-structured interview

Background reading –Legislation –Reviews –Strategies –Published data –Comparison with other authorities –Research papers

Findings – interviews Main causes of homelessness among young people Family breakdown Financial problems – end of statutory benefit entitlement Violence Main problems faced by homeless young people Overall shortage of supported housing across the county CYP have to move in order to access support Transport in rural areas

Housing Assessment Data Districts have a statutory duty to report homelessness figures. Local homelessness strategies identified the need for more consistent data across the all districts. Cheltenham District has given a strong lead on this with varying levels of engagement from the other districts. New software introduced for use across all districts based on a single initial assessment form designed by Cheltenham. Obtained a download of a whole year’s data from Cheltenham District for 2007/08 to carry out an initial data analysis.

Findings – data review New software is a simple survey tool – Keypoint, made available on the web. Data quality issues arising from design and poor data inputting practices. Monitoring is carried out quarterly for ALL applications, regardless of age. Better than nothing!

Initial headlines In 2007/08, 490 housing assessments were completed for young people below the age of 20 in Cheltenham District. This was 27% of all assessments in this district. 85% were single and 97% were White British 34% were living with friends or relatives, 16% with parents, 10% in supported housing. 32% were considered to be homeless, while 11% were in acceptable accommodation. CCP carried out the largest number of assessments, followed by Connexions. 33% of referrals were self referrals and 28% were referred through the Connexions service.

56% of young people requested further support The most frequent areas requested were: –Debt/money problems (22%) –Tenancy support (15%) –Training/Job (11%) –Education (7%) 3% were fleeing violence and 5 young people asked for family mediation.

Still to do …. Investigate outcome data and identify gaps. Visit the other district council key leads. Map current provision. Propose further improvements to the current housing assessment form. Look at 2008/09 data for the county as a whole.

If I could start again ….?