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National Youth Homelessness Scheme
Health and well-being
Positive health and well-being is an essential foundation for successful independent living and its importance across the community as a whole is beginning to be widely recognised. For young people in supported housing, who have often experienced negative events that make them vulnerable to poor physical and mental health, improving their health and well-being is an important element in preventing long term social exclusion.
Research for this module identified a number of common ingredients for successful approaches. Very importantly, all the organisations involved took a holistic approach to the needs of young people and had a much broader view than the tenancy support and life skills approach that forms the core focus for much of supported housing. In order to deliver holistic services all the case study organisations needed to pull in additional resources. Whilst in many cases this was funding, it also included staffing and accommodation.
There was also a strong focus on partnership and joint working amongst the case studies and this was apparent at a number of levels, from joint commissioning across a number of statutory agencies to the provision of subsidised leisure passes.
Involving young people in the services was again a common ingredient and the influence of young people in the design or creation of services was always evident. Providers were flexible in their approach to engaging young people, recognising that they do not always like going to new places and that they may respond better to one-to-one support rather than group work. There was also recognition that it is important to equip young people to access services once they have left the supported housing setting.
(researched and written by National Children's Bureau)
