PROJECT
Safe Haven
PURPOSE
To work with particularly vulnerable young people in care
FUNDING
Family Action received social investment of £300,000 from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and £700,000 from Social and Sustainable Capital to develop the scheme. Local authorities made up to five payments per beneficiary with a total payment of up to £33,000 depending on results
BACKGROUND
Safe Haven was created by charity Family Action for young people in care with the most complex needs. It took two years to develop, in consultation with young people in care and care leavers and launched in 2016 in Sandwell and Wolverhampton.
ACTION
Safe Haven's three key goals were to provide a secure base for young people to go to when they felt anxious, to build relationships with young people, and help them acknowledge their own feelings, wishes and things they wanted to change.
Each young person was matched with a mentor who offered crisis support, providing young people with an immediate response day or night. At times of crisis young people could talk to their mentors or come to the Safe Haven building. Each young person had a bespoke plan with targets around engaging with the Safe Haven service, education, employment or training, and placement stability.
"The building never closed," says Sam Hoskins, operational manager at Family Action. "We used a team of mentors who worked around the clock. We wanted young people to be able to contact us no matter what time it was." Internal monitoring data shows 63 per cent of contact time took place outside daytime hours.
Safe Haven social workers carried out complementary work with the young people's birth families and with the professionals and carers involved in their care.
As a test-and-learn programme Safe Haven was only funded for a year. "What we achieved in the first year was tremendous but it wasn't long enough," says Hoskins. Family Action hopes to use the learning from the programme in future projects.
OUTCOME
An evaluation by the University of Central Lancashire with York Consulting found 83.3 per cent of young participants felt they had improved their management of risk while 95.6 per cent felt they now had a positive presence in their lives. More than half said their contact with their birth and extended family had improved while 55.5 per cent felt their emotional control, anger management or behaviour had improved.
- If you think your project is worthy of inclusion, email supporting data to derren.hayes@markallengroup.com
