‘#ChangeTheStory together… A community fighting to ‘End Youth Homelessness’

09.08.19: This week I have had the opportunity to learn more about what Centrepoint staff outside the direct housing services do, hearing more about the wider organisation of Centrepoint and all that it undertakes to deliver the mission to ‘End Youth Homelessness’ and #ChangeTheStory. The Centrepoint Psychologically Informed Environment (PIE) is being implemented across the whole organisation, not just the support accommodation or hostels because Centrepoint is more than merely offering ‘a bed for the night’. Instead, there are Centrepoint programmes to help the young people reach their full potential, including employment, education and training, sports and arts engagement activities, move on accommodations and support services, as well as a health and well-being team to support mental and physical health needs (c.f. www.centrepoint.org.uk/what-we-do/).

To enable all of this direct work with young people, there are also vital teams supporting this service delivery, including finance, HR, policy and research, strategy, property management, fundraising and events. For example, just this week Centrepoint were involved in the ‘Kings Cup Regatta’ as part of Cowes Week, Isle of Wight. Fara Williams (English Football player with lived experience of youth homelessness, and Centrepoint Ambassador) skippered a boat to joint third in the race, raising money at this prestigious event to enable the charity to carry out all of the above work with young people experiencing homelessness. It is a great honour that HRH Duke of Cambridge is Centrepoint’s Patron and gives such opportunities for the organisation to raise both income and awareness of the work we do via such events. Importantly some of Centrepoint’s current young people were also able to attend the event, and experience something completely different from their normal day to day experiences, as well as sharing their story and changing perceptions about youth homelessness (see @Centrepoint on Twitter to see videos and photographs of the day).

And even beyond the above ‘frontline’ and ‘support’ teams in Centrepoint, there is also a wider community of valued Centrepoint volunteers, ambassadors, donors, and individuals who run marathons, ride bikes and support the work of charity through donations and other sponsorship activities (e.g. ‘Sponsor a Room’ / national ‘Sleep Out’). Centrepoint therefore is a huge diverse community all with one key aim, to tackle the issue of youth homelessness, and ‘Change the Story’ for young people experiencing or at risk of homelessness (for more details of how you could get involved, see: https://centrepoint.org.uk/get-involved/). As the famous Gestalt psychologist Kurt Koffka once argued almost 80 years ago; “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”.

Moreover, this week I have reflected that even working in the sector, I wasn’t truly aware of the scale of the problem, in terms of the levels of need that require this coordinated response. For example, in the year 2017/2018 it was estimated that 103,000 young people aged 16–25 years approached their local council to get help due to lack of accommodation or a safe place to stay (www.centrepoint.org.uk/media/3069/making-homeless-young-people-count.pdf). However, there were only 12,000 supported accommodation beds available nationally for this population. Moreover, these figures don’t include the ‘hidden homeless’ population; those young people ‘sofa surfing’ or staying with friends or in temporary accommodation. And sadly these figures are in the context of a national rise in all age ‘rough sleeping’ homelessness since 2010 of 165% (c.f. www.homeless.org.uk/facts/homelessness-in-numbers/rough-sleeping/rough-sleeping-our-analysis). Specifically, Centrepoint and their local partners supported over 15,000 young people during the 2017–18 financial year. Of those young people resident in Centrepoint services 40% were care leavers, 29% had previously slept rough and 21% were refugees. It is also concerning that over half of the young people had issues with their mental health, although perhaps this is not surprising due to the long established impact of homelessness, trauma and other adverse early childhood experiences on mental wellbeing.

Centrepoint have already been taking the lead on campaigning to raise awareness of these issues and impact policy change around youth homelessness for many years. PIE argues that the use of such research data outlined above is not only critical to identify the scale of the issue, but also to understand what needs to be addressed (e.g. ensuring provision for mental health needs that are a consequence of experiences of homelessness and prevent a young person from fulfilling their potential), drive evidence based interventions, and contribute to the wider understanding of the psychology of homelessness (e.g. Keats et al, 2012; Maguire & Richie, 2015; Westminster PIE Guide; 2015). Moving forward the implementation of PIE within the organisation will be evaluated with our national academic partners. In addition, Centrepoint as per PIE principles, will continue to use research methodologies to understand and develop evidence based recommendations for policy change in various areas or issues related to youth homelessness (e.g. care leavers, youth violence and gangs etc. — see https://centrepoint.org.uk/what-we-do/policy-and-research/)

However, we can #ChangeTheStory. 88% of those young people accessing Centrepoint services during the 2018–19 period moved on from services positively. The Centrepoint community works. Every part of the organisation coming together with one aim; ‘A home and a job’ for all young people needing to access our services, can deliver positive change. To start with, we need to tell the story, and using data and evidence from the work of Centrepoint, including the real stories of the young people we work with, means that the truth is harder to ignore. And then we need to change that story, and highlight that positive outcomes for young people are possible, with the right evidence based support and access to resources, just as those young people who attended the Kings Cup Regatta this week were doing…