A community health and wellbeing approach to addressing the UK youth homelessness crisis

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Young people aged 16 to 24 years old in the UK are amongst those most at risk for experiencing homelessness. The covid-19 pandemic, years of austerity and changes to the benefits system have all contributed to wider systemic issues that means youth homelessness is now reaching record numbers. Homeless organisations are having to respond to a rising demand for their services locally and regionally, for service users with increasingly complex needs, and with reduced resources and higher costs. Regional authorities are also taking on more responsibility for homelessness strategies which need to be informed by the best available evidence. More than ever, these organisations need effective, inexpensive, and easy to implement approaches to improve outcomes for young people who stand to benefit the most. This project will meet this urgent need by understanding further how the core components of previously co-created Mental Skills Training Toolkits are delivered within St Basils new Transition Hub Service. St Basils is a West Midlands-based youth homeless charity that supports young people aged 16-24 who are experiencing homelessness. These three toolkits (activities, delivery style and evaluation) were co-created with young people experiencing homelessness to support their needs. These toolkits are based on 10 years of research with St Basils, to develop, deliver, and evaluate the My Strengths Training for Life programme MST4Life programme. Engaging in MST4Life has helped over 600 young people experiencing homelessness to achieve positive outcomes such as improved health and wellbeing, engagement in employment, education and training and progress towards independent living. This fellowship aims to build on work from my ESRC funded PhD which conducted a process evaluation of the MST4Life programme to understand the extent to which frontline service staff could deliver a psychologically informed programme in adherence to the strengths-based delivery style. The fellowship will contribute to the evaluation of strengths-based approaches in the Transition Hub which supports the most perpetually excluded and socially isolated young people experiencing homelessness, whose needs are more complex than has been previously seen throughout the research collaboration with St Basils. Further interdisciplinary work within the homelessness sector that both directly supports young people experiencing homelessness (e.g., the MST4life programme), and indirectly through challenging societal and systemic stigma and stereotypes that negatively impact those experiencing homelessness, through marginalisation and discrimination are important aspects this fellowship aims to address. The international research visit to 2 Canadian institutions and local partners within the homeless sector (e.g., Youth Services Bureau) is a key opportunity to present my research to international academic audiences (e.g., Centre for Urban Youth Research; CUYR), and community organisations, extending the impact of research from my PhD and this fellowship. Through the visit I will also continue to build my own research network and collaborations (e.g., through affiliate membership to the CUYR) and intersectionality through learning about homelessness in different cultural contexts and different disciplinary perspectives. This fellowship therefore aims to: 1) Further understand the extent to which staff can deliver a strengths-based approach in a complex setting to support young people to develop essential soft outcomes and progress towards independence.2) Understand how public engagement events based on the collaborative work between St Basils and the SPRINT Research project can help reduce societal stigma towards homelessness. 3) Integrate a novel perspective from the academic literature on urban governance, and to disseminate research to a wide range of audiences to influence public and policy debate on homelessness.