Steps for homeless young people
Emily Rogers
Tuesday, April 26, 2016
Step by Step is a charity providing accommodation and support for homeless young people across Hampshire and beyond. The support on offer includes a training and development programme.
Project
Step by Step
Purpose
To help homeless young people achieve their potential
Funding
£2.8m in 2015/16, around 85 per cent from housing and support contracts with Hampshire, Surrey and West Berkshire councils
Action
Young people are mainly referred by council children’s services and just over half are 16 or 17. They are given an emergency bed if needed, while an allocated skills, talent, empowerment, progress (Step) worker conducts a needs and skills assessment. The worker can refer them to in-house services including family mediation, counselling and drugs and alcohol service D’n’A.
The charity’s four main bases or “foyers” offer two stages of accommodation, starting with clients staying for around five months in premises staffed round the clock. The young people cook and do household chores on a rota and have one or two weekly one-to-one sessions, helping them identify their skills and aspirations.
“Many clients have never been asked what they’re good at,” says head of client services Luke O’Neil. “This question is crucial to unlocking their potential.”
The next stage involves sharing flats with up to three others for around a year.
Young people then embark on three-stage accredited training called First Steps to Launch. Initial sessions cover topics like healthy eating, budgeting, sexual health and relationships, and maintaining tenancies. Young people then work on developing and delivering community projects. The final stage is an employability programme.
Outcome
An internal impact report shows the charity reached 1,330 young people and family members between April 2014 and March 2015. Of 450 receiving caseworker support, 85 per cent stabilised or made positive progress.
Of 35 participants receiving family mediation, 80 per cent saw improved relationships. In total, 21 returned home out of 23 where this was possible. Of 145 supported by the charity’s D’n’A project, 88 per cent reduced or stabilised their substance misuse or other addictions.
Of 230 participants in the charity’s employability programme between April 2015 and January 2016, 70 per cent entered education, employment or training.
