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• A strategic approach to working in schools

A strategic approach to working in schools

The most obvious strategic driver for this work is the preventing homelessness agenda.  Most local authorities have embraced a preventative approach to homelessness, through new partnership based strategies drawn up following the Homelessness Act 2002. Work with schools is often included as part of  the prevention agenda within local strategies.

But early prevention of homelessness by establishing work with schools can assist local public sector organisations and their partners with a range of other strategic goals.

This is because if young people become homeless, they are more likely to experience a range of risks which will impact negatively on their long term life chances:

• Substance, including alcohol, misuse
• Involvement in crime
• Being the victim of crime
• Mental health problems/illness
• Poor diet and general health
• Teenage pregnancy
• Not being engaged in education, training or employment.

Local authorities should lead, at a strategic level, on championing work in schools across partnerships. Children's trusts or partnerships could consider pooling some budgets to support work in schools, because arguably, the preventative work should also be a strategic feature for:

• Connexions
• Specialist Children's Services
• Youth Offending Teams
• Drug Action Teams
• Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships
• Directors of Public Health
• Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
• Primary Care Trusts
• Teenage Pregnancy Services
• Youth Services

For individual schools homelessness prevention work can support:

• Meeting the Healthier Schools Standards
• Meeting standards for Inclusion,
• Delivering against the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority Non-Statutory
• framework for PHSE & Citizenship
• Evidence for Ofsted inspections

For those organisations and services wanting to deliver preventative work in schools, working at a strategic level is important across both housing departments and children's and young people's services. Involvement at a strategic level is not only an opportunity to highlight the benefits of preventative work in schools, but it can also assist with relationship building and access routes into schools, helping to reach young people.

In this section

• Case Study 1: Making it real: using peer education and mentoring in schools work
• Case Study 2: A creative approach reduces homeless applications: a Youth Service approach to working with schools
• Case Study 3: Mapping it out: working with local authorities to identify schools to work with
• Case Study 5: Small is beautiful: working with all secondary schools in a rural district council
• Case Study 6: Developing conflict resolution skills: preventing homelessness through building young people's resilience to stay with their families
• Case Study 7: Keeping schools in the loop: Top tips on accessing schools and highlighting the realities of youth homelessness
• Case Study 8: Better together: A partnership approach to delivering work in schools
• Case Study 9: Big and beautiful: How the experience of being homeless is used in road shows to reduce youth homelessness
• Case study 10 - Interactive Theatre in Rother District Schools - Sean's Story

Related downloads

• R1: Schools Training and Mentoring Project (STaMP) manual (St Basils)
  MS Word, 798 kb, 25 pages

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