There is increasing interest in the UK and across the Global North in preventing homelessness amongst young people in particular, given that the earlier someone first becomes homeless the more protracted and damaging their experience is likely to be.
The Australian Geelong Project, which has successfully used a school-based survey to identify young people at heightened risk of homelessness and offer them tailored support, has therefore attracted a great deal of international attention.
Centrepoint has taken up the mantle of leading the implementation of Upstream in the English context, launching a pilot initiative in six schools located across Manchester and London, surveying children aged 11 to 16.
This report captures the first year of learning in a three-year evaluation of the initiative, drawing on interviews with 19 stakeholders and analysis of the first year of Upstream surveys.
The key points to emerge were as follows:
- Upstream was viewed as an innovative and promising model by stakeholders given its notable positive impacts in Australia.
- The early stages of school buy-in and set up of Upstream are labour intensive. Having a key contact in participating schools and early attention to data privacy issues are essential.
- Survey implementation was largely successful in the Upstream pilot, with Centrepoint staff deftly overcoming challenges associated with the rigidity of school timetabling and technical difficulties with the digital platform.
- The sensitivity of homelessness risk as a topic means that the framing of the Upstream initiative both to children and to their parents/carers had to be very carefully handled.
- Overall, the Upstream survey content was viewed positively by key stakeholders as helpful and clear, albeit that there were some concerns about the comprehension of certain items by younger students.
- Survey analysis revealed more than 1 in 10 young people were at risk or experiencing youth homelessness in the pilot schools. Interestingly, there is limited evidence to suggest youth homelessness risk is higher for particular secondary school age/year groups. Nearly three-quarters of those identified as at risk of youth homelessness were not disengaged from school, but they did indicate lowered levels of resilience and wellbeing.
- Homelessness risks were identified using these survey results but also, crucially, drew on follow-up conversations with the young people flagged and input from school staff.
- Centrepoint has been on a journey over the past year as regards the Upstream support offer, moving away from a generic youth support offer and externally provided mental health support, towards a stronger emphasis on family-centred support.
- Key informants reported positive feedback from those children and families who have actively engaged with Upstream thus far. There are also some promising early indications of improvements in the circumstances of student supported by Upstream.
- Key learning from this first year of the pilot initiative includes the importance of: bedding in this emerging ‘whole family’ approach in the Upstream pilot; further refinement of data privacy, ethics and consent processes; contributing to the improvement of the survey software and survey tool; and the establishment.
Next steps
The remaining two years of this evaluation will involve the collection and analysis of a more substantial array of both quantitative and qualitative data on the Upstream pilot, including survey outcome data, perspectives from young people and families assisted through the initiative, as well as comparisons of level of risk across waves of survey data. This will all be supplemented with linked data from local authorities to establish any changes in levels of homelessness from targeted schools.