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Blog posted by: Anna Whalen & Val Keen Wednesday, 23 September 2015 - 7:00am

Anna Whalen and Val Keen of youth homelessness charity St Basils explain the aims, design and scope of the Positive Pathway for supporting young people out of homelessness.

If you have completed Homeless Link’s Young and Homeless survey this year (and if you haven’t already you should do so now: homelessness providers click here, local authorities click here!) you will have spotted a question about the Positive Pathway.

When Homeless Link asked the question last year, around half of local authorities said they had or were developing a local version of the Positive Pathway. Other areas on the other hand questioned what it is and why they need one.

So while this year’s Young and Homeless survey is still running, I thought this would be a good opportunity to explain the Positive Pathway and how it has evolved.

Better prevention, better outcomes

The Positive Pathway is a national framework designed to help local authorities and their partners more effectively prevent homelessness among 16 – 25 year olds and promote better outcomes for young people who can’t stay at home or in care. We developed it at St Basils in 2012, with input from other agencies and young people, and with funding from the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Of course anyone working in youth homelessness and housing for young people know the challenges and changes keep coming, and there is no sign of let-up. That’s why we continually revise the Pathway to make sure it suits the environments we work in as they change.

In fact when we came to refresh the national Positive Pathway model and guidance this year, it wasn’t a cosmetic tweak that was needed. It was a total re-write.

Meeting today’s challenges

Based on the challenges out there for young people and those who are committed to providing service to them, the following themes won’t be a surprise to you:

• Clear, accessible and realistic universal information and advice on housing options locally is needed for ALL young people and their parents/carers  - web-based local information is likely to be at the fore of this
• Affordability is a key issue  - economic activity increasingly underpins the prospects of young people being able to firstly access and then sustain housing.
• And of course, hand in hand with affordability is the issue of housing supply for young people in many – if not most – areas.
• Housing related support is not enough alone to meet the needs of those with complex and multiple needs - joint commissioning will increasingly be needed to achieve long term successful outcomes
• Joint working on prevention and the development of a range of options to enable ‘progression’ within an accommodation ‘pathway’ are still key features

Free support to developing a Positive Pathway for your area

Our work on the Positive Pathway is funded by the Department for Communities and Local Government’s Homelessness and Support Unit and we offer free advice and support to local authorities.

Last year we worked with around 120 local authorities and we’re supporting a similar number this year. Do get in touch with us if you would like to discuss how we might help tailor the approach for your area.

You can find out more about the Positive Pathway on our website, including a booklet and summary graphic to help you understand how it works. We are also discussing the Positive Pathway framework at Homeless Link’s youth homelessness conference on the 14th March next year.

Contact the Youth Homelessness Advisers at St Basils:

• Anna Whalen - anna.whalen@stbasils.org.uk
• Val Keen - val.keen@stbasils.org.uk