Homelessness prevention by Community Housing Advice Initiative and Children First

Embedded advice and support for parents in schools

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The context

Homelessness can cause major disruption to relationships, routines and familiar settings at any time in life. But it’s especially damaging when experienced in childhood. Not having a consistent, stable home negatively impacts children’s health, wellbeing, development and life chances. A third of Scottish homelessness applications include children, with family applications rising year on year pre-pandemic. Households with children, on average, spend longer intemporary accommodation.

Due to the city’s limited stock of family-sized social housing and expensive private housing sector, homeless families in Edinburgh face some of the longest rehousing journeys in Scotland. So services which find effective ways of targeting advice and support at families with a higher risk of homelessness are vital.

The intervention

Maximise! began in 2018, as a pilot based in a ‘cluster’ of six South East Edinburgh schools with high levels of child poverty. It offers ‘family-centric’ advice and support to parents through a ‘one-stop shop’ located in schools. The project is particularly funded to prioritise work with care experienced families (which can include care experienced parents, or families vulnerable to this intervention and who therefore require additional support). The service has three strands: every family is offered the advice strand, provided by CHAI, whilst many also benefit from family support from Children First and/or employability assistance (also from CHAI).

The service is designed to be embedded in schools, with school staff (including teachers, pupil support and education welfare officers), having ownership of the appointments that can be booked for families. The model was temporarily adapted due to the pandemic, with appointments offered mostly online or by ‘phone. Other professionals, such as community link workers, can also refer. Building a trusting relationship with a family is key for the service. Workers take a persistent, proactive, flexible, trauma-informed approach, aiming to support families who sometimes struggle to engage with services.

CHAI offers specialist advice and assistance with income maximisation, benefits and personal debt, whilst also helping families to address rent/Council Tax issues, and challenge repossession actions, including representation at court/tribunals, and explore alternative housing options. They also support currently homeless families. Maximise! estimates half the families they work with have some sort of housing issue, whilst most have financial issues likely to impact on housing down the line.

The outcome

Schools and parents responded well to the pilot, with high demand for the service, including from many families who hadn’t engaged with advice agencies before. Maximise! has now been rolled out citywide to all schools, though retains a care experience focus.

In year two, Maximise! supported 550 families and 900 children. Many were lone parent families - who are over-represented in the homelessness system. The service delivered £700,000 financial gains and 80 tenancy sustainment interventions. Many of these were rent-related, with 12 families represented at tribunal, but they also covered family conflict resolution: another major cause of homelessness.

A 2021 Social Return on Investment report on Maximise! found each £1 invested would generate £24 of benefits (range: £20 -£28). The Edinburgh Poverty Commission described the service as “among the best and highest impact approaches seen anywhere in UK”, singling out the combination of “high quality advice, advocacy and wellbeing support embedded in key public services”. Maximise! also received the 2021 Scottish Public Service Award for Voluntary Sector Partnerships.

Key insights

• delivering housing advice from a trusted place families already go to can expand its take-up and impact
• regular interaction with and feedback to the host (in this case, the school) is key to embedding a service
• many families experiencing poverty have more than one issue – so providing a holistic service is key

Find out more…

Stella Farrell, Service Manager, CHAI
stella.farrell@chaiedinburgh.org.uk or maximise@children1st.org.uk