Shelter, National Campaign for Homeless People

£90,000 (2008/2011) for the Children’s Services Campaign

A Regional Coordinator developed, delivered and monitored a regional children’s services plan in the North East as part of a national strategy. The aim was to influence policy and practice with a view to extending the reach of Shelter’s existing services to the most vulnerable homeless families with children, thereby improving their lives and future prospects. The outcomes of the project are intended to be: fewer children and young people becoming homeless in the North East, with better support available to those already experiencing housing problems; housing advice services more easily accessible for vulnerable families with young children; and better multi-agency working and information sharing between housing and children’s services.

Policy impacts and outcomes

• Shelter laid an amendment in the House of Lords stage of the Apprenticeship, Skills, Children and Learning Bill, which names local authority housing departments as ‘relevant partners’ of Children’s Services authorities and Children’s Trusts. Although the amendment was not taken on board, housing has been named in the accompanying guidance setting out how Children’s Trusts should engage with non-statutory partners.
• The Department of Children, Schools and Families has done work on the Common Assessment Framework 'Every Child Matters' (ECM) and how Local Authority housing services can be more involved in the process. Evidence from Regional Coordinators was used in connection with Shelter’s policy objective 2, which specifies that ECM targets should reflect the impact of homelessness and bad housing.
• Shelter worked with the Child Poverty Unit (a joint unit of DWP/DCSF/HMTreasury), considering how child poverty relates to housing and neighbourhoods, in the development of a strategy to accompany the Child Poverty bill.
• Lobbying was undertaken during the progress of the Housing and Regeneration Bill in 2008 on Family Intervention Tenancies (FITs), which are intended to enable families re-housed to get the right sort of intensive support and to be less likely to be evicted. Shelter influenced the Department for Communities and Local Government’s guidance for landlords on FITs, including greater protection for children whose families may be threatened with eviction due to child protection issues.
• Recognition and policy on joint working arrangements between Housing and Children’s Services by central government departments includes: reference to tackling housing issues in the Children’s Plan 2007; publication of joint DCSF/CLG guidance in May 2008 ‘Joint Working between Housing and Children’s Services: Preventing homelessness and tackling its effects on children and young people’; the housing and neighbourhoods section in the recent Child Poverty Unit’s consultation leading up to the Child Poverty Bill; and commitment by the government to publish an accompanying strategy to include measures to address issues concerning housing and neighbourhoods, and child poverty.
• The North East Regional Coordinator was invited by Sunderland City Council’s Sustainable Communities Scrutiny Committee to contribute to its review of the Council’s Allocations Policy.
• The Coordinator attended a planning event to influence the priorities to be set in Newcastle’s Children and Young People’s Plan for 2010/2013.
• In response to recent case law the Coordinator has worked with the Regional Youth Homeless Network Steering Group to develop a good practice guide on working with homeless 16/17 year olds. Funding has been obtained to appoint a Regional Network Coordinator for youth homelessness. A partnership with Barnado’s will support the young people involved in this process.
• Work continues, especially through Children’s Centres, Homestarts and the Regional Youth Homeless Network, to provide clarification of the legislation relating to the duties owed to 16 and 17 year olds. The Specialist Adviser at the Department for Communities and Local Government has been particularly helpful in highlighting the effects of the legislation through statutory channels and in advising on further engagement of the project across the North East.
• The NE Regional Coordinator was a member of the regional steering group of Children England (a consortium which brings together charities working with children). This provides an invaluable opportunity to promote the findings of Shelter’s work in the interests of homeless children and young people in the region.
• An evaluation is to be undertaken of workshops delivered by the Coordinator to provide housing information to members of the public and other professionals about duties and responsibilities and services available.
• The project was represented at Housing and Equality Diversity groups to ensure that the specific housing concerns of young people were voiced and taken account of within front-line housing services and other services, such as Family Mediation.
• The project was represented on the regional steering group of Children England, which brings together charities working with children and young people. A classroom toolkit, aimed at helping teachers and other education professionals who support homeless or badly housed children, was developed and promoted to all primary schools in Northumberland and Newcastle. It was planned to follow this up across the region.
• The project assisted in the production of a podcast aimed at giving young people information about their rights in respect of duties owed by Local Authorities to 16 and 17 year olds. It conducted an evaluation of Darlington Council’s protocol for 16 and 17 year olds and a meeting was held with Middlesbrough Children’s Services to review their current practices.
• The NE Regional Coordinator responded on behalf of Shelter to the Government’s Tackling Child Poverty and Improving Life Chances consultation, drawing from experiences in the North East. The national Child Poverty Unit has asked Shelter if it could use some of the content within the national strategy.
• The newly appointed Child Poverty Regional Coordinator, based within the Institute of Local Governance at Durham University, met with the NE Regional Coordinator and was impressed with the Benchmarking Guide (Improving Outcomes for Children and Young People in Housing Need) on which she led for Shelter and which is being re-written to take account of recent changes to service structures and national and regional policy and welfare reform.
• The NE Regional Coordinator helped plan and facilitate a conference run by the Regional Youth Homelessness Network. The aim of the conference was to consult with service providers, service users, Supporting People commissioners, local authorities and the VCS on a regional strategy for youth homelessness. Shelter’s learning from its experience in the region is likely to be embedded within the strategy.
• The regional Centre for Excellence and Outcomes has recognized Shelter’s work relating to families with complex and multiple needs as good practice and has asked for case studies to be provided for validation and promotion nationally.
• The NE Regional Coordinator presented at a regional National Homelessness Advice Service seminar on changes to housing benefit. Shelter has been pressing nationally for amendments to the proposed changes.
• The Department for Communities and Local Government offered Shelter funding to deliver seminars to Managers of Children’s Centres on the learning from Shelter’s Children’s Service.
• An independent evaluation of Shelter’s national project undertaken by Merida Associates has been published by the University of Birmingham under the title ‘Keys to the Future’ .
• The national three-year Children’s Services project came to an end in the autumn of 2011. Shelter believes it has substantially highlighted housing and homelessness as key factors in relation to child poverty in the North East.
• The North East Regional Coordinator had further promoted the Children’s Service Advice Line, which takes calls from professionals engaged in provision of services to homeless children. Shelter decided that the Advice Line should continue beyond the life-cycle of the Children’s Services project.
• The NE Coordinator worked with the Children’s Workforce Development Council and the Department of Education as part of a Child Poverty Reference Group to develop a training module and learner resource. She supported the Regional Youth Homeless Network in the development of a youth homelessness strategy, which will provide a framework for agency responses to youth homelessness in the region. She spoke at a Chartered Institute for Housing event (on Young People and Supported Accommodation) on the impact of welfare reform and changes to benefits.
• Having led on the production of the Benchmark Model for how the needs of homeless children can be better served by agencies, particularly local authority departments, the NE Coordinator was involved in its revision. The Benchmark Model is a key legacy of the Children’s Service project. She worked with stakeholders on an exit strategy to ensure that elements of the project’s work in the region are taken forward, for example via the Regional Youth Homeless Strategy and the use by Children’s Centres’ of the Children’s Service’s Advice Line and, finally, through dissemination of the report of the Birmingham University evaluation of the project (published at the end of 2011).

© The Millfield House Foundation 2010. Registered Charity No. 271180.