Youth Homelessness Prevention Pathway

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A multi-agency working group, coordinated by the A Way Home Scotland coalition, has produced guidance and recommendations to make support for care leavers more consistent across Scotland and easier for care providers.

This report was developed to improve the housing journey of care leavers in Scotland and is the result of work between May and September 2019, which included assessment of the problem, ambition, activity, partnerships, and implementation process required for improvement. A multi-agency working group, which includes local authorities, health and social care partnerships, the DWP, homeless organisations and children's charities, was chaired by CELCIS and co-ordinated by the A Way Home Scotland coalition produced the report, which contains key recommendations to make support for care leavers more consistent across Scotland. The working group has engaged closely with the Independent Care Review to ensure recommendations and advice set out in this paper are in line with the direction of travel the Review is taking.

The report sets out evidence-backed next steps to:

• Support the full implementation of the policy and legislative frameworks which mean corporate parents can and do prevent care leavers experiencing homelessness, at the point of leaving care and later
• Ensure that if they do experience homelessness, care leavers can rapidly access support which is tailored to their specific needs and circumstances from their corporate parents, recognising that their care experience may make them uniquely vulnerable in particular ways, at the point of leaving care and later
• Support practice and culture shifts, including in partnership working and shared responsibility between all corporate parents, to help ensure young people are prepared for, and supported, through the transition into adulthood and beyond once they have moved into their own accommodation.