Introduction
Each year, roughly 1% of the United Kingdom population, some 1-2 million people, experiences a period of homelessness that puts such individuals in contact with homeless care providers and no less than 750,000 individuals are homeless in the United Kingdom at any given period (Burt et al., 2010). People facing homelessness can gain from the various services offered by the program supported by the Community Human Services (CHS).
Among this group of people, there are various significant sub-groups, comprising: chronically homeless – among the 1-2 million people who face homelessness yearly, 10% have been classified as chronically homeless because of their prolonged durations of homelessness. At any given period, such a group will signify nearly half of the population (Park et al., 2004). This sub-group has been categorized as the chronically, or permanently homeless.
CHS, the United Kingdom Department of Urban Settlement (DUS), the United Kingdom Department of Housing Activities (DHA) and the United Kingdom Inter-agency Group (UKIG) have unanimously accepted the following description of permanently homeless people: unattended homeless individuals with hindering conditions who have either continuously been homeless for 12 months or have had no less than four cases of homelessness during the last 36 months; homeless family – information derived from the Public Analysis of Homeless Caregivers and members approximates that during 2009, family units encompassed 29% of the homeless individuals; 19% were young people and 10% were mature people in homeless family units (Burt et al., 2010).
On yearly basis, this implies 431,000 family units, comprising 929,000 young people, face homelessness in the U.K. Based on this proposal, a homeless family refers to one or two mature individuals escorted by no less than one young individual who are either homeless or who have had latest cases in which they were homeless; and at-risk persons – those people who may be vulnerable to become both homeless and permanently not-housed.
For instance, the yearly frequency of homelessness amid adolescents is approximated at 6.1% amid people aged 13 to 18, and data shows that people in this age set are endangered for facing homelessness (Koegel et al., 2010).
For the purposes of this proposal, a homeless adolescent refers to a person aged between 15 and 23 years who does not get support from family members and is not accompanied – living on the streets or in an unhealthy state. Other susceptible individuals in danger of homelessness comprise the disabled, refugees, individuals leaving institutions (for example, incarceration, hospitalized treatment for persistent medical or psychological states), frail aged, individuals facing abuse, and catastrophe survivors.
CHS and homelessness
The community human services is the U.K chief agency for guarding the health of U.K citizens and assisting the provision of basic human services, in particular for any individual who is least capable of assisting himself or herself.
The community agency is the biggest grant-making group in the U.K. The projects and assignments financed by the agency are managed by 11 functioning departments that function directly with national, local, and community-based organizations. Various CHS-financed programs are offered at the community level through national, regional or local groups, or by local and faith-oriented organizations and private division.
Ending persistent homelessness needs accommodation combined with the kinds of activities backed up through CHS projects. The provision of healthcare to people facing homelessness is encompassed in the operations of the agency, both in two projects mainly focused on homeless persons and in three non-focused, or ordinary, service provision projects (as illustrated in table 1 below).
Very frequently, individuals facing homelessness may be suitable for any service financed by such projects. Since the funds available for the ordinary projects are so much higher compared to the funds allocated to the identified homeless projects, CHS has dynamically followed a concept of enhancing access to usual packages for individuals facing homelessness (Koegel et al., 2010).
Table 1: CHS projects appropriate to individuals facing homelessness
CHS homelessness proposal
Purpose of proposal
The objective of the proposal is to provide the agency with an outline for the future based on an official document that deals with how persons, young people, and family units facing homelessness can be better reached via the proposed management of agency funds. This proposal aids the leader in highlighting any achievement that has been attained in the last several months, as well as in charting an option for future operations for the agency that draws from the recent endeavours. The proposal covers a three-year period, from FY 2013-2016.
Audience for the proposal
The proposal has both intrinsic and extrinsic audience groups and hence may be implemented in very many avenues. The intrinsic audiences consist of the CHS working and personnel departments that shall endorse the proposal and accept to put it into practice as is suitable to their relevant program. For instance, the proposal may affect CHS groups’ operation and promotion schedules, group functions, coaching, information gathering/decision-making, and/or financial planning.
The extrinsic audiences will be broad-ranging, comprising CHS beneficiaries and other key supporters of settlement programs, members of the agency settlement policy academy, the investors of agency/community 5-year strategies to curb homelessness, a participant of DUS’s program of medical care procedure, support/interest groups, community representatives, researchers, national participants, and the United Kingdom Program on Housing.
Approach utilized to develop the 2013 framework
In developing the 2013 framework, a Strategic Planning Team was created, including participants from the different groups taking part in the Agency’s Program. This planning team, working in collaboration with the agency, used a strategic procedure in reviewing current achievements and in developing suggestions for the scope and tactics to be the outline of the 2013 activities, the planning team reported to the entire team and reviewed the program as per the responses of the entire team. The 2013 proposal was distributed to the CHS working and employee department leaders before being endorsed by the agency and released to the public.
Measuring group results
The Agency’s Planning Team will keep on meeting frequently. Before any meeting, the working and personnel departments that take part in the Planning Team will be required to meet with a view of updating the activities monitoring template. This template comprises main activity that the agency is implementing associated with housing and is drafted based on the objectives and procedures documented in the agency activity framework.
All activities recorded in the template comprise data regarding the activities, their durations, and their outcomes or expected results. The template can later be utilized as a diagnostic instrument for assessing the agency’s development associated with the activity through goals or strategies, in addition to through participants. All revised templates are circulated to those participating in the agency’s planning Team meetings. Also, any contributing group reports verbally on its operations in the meeting; meeting minutes are written and circulated to participants (Corey & Corey, 2006).
The following sections present additional discussion about different elements of the proposal. The first section outlines the 2013 Program Activities in detail, offering illustrations of tasks that might be carried out with a view of supporting the objectives and tactics suggested in the proposal. The second section underscores what is new in the proposal and the justification for extending the current goals and tactics developed in the previous plan. Lastly, an appendix, which provides a poster that would appeal to the target population, is given.
The proposal in detail
The section describes each goal and strategy identified in the proposal. The section as well presents, under each tactic, some examples of feasible tasks the agency could carry out with a view of fulfilling a given tactic. It is presumed throughout the proposal that no strategy, or activity, will be carried out before searching for and obtaining all necessary legal and/or dogmatic alterations required for ensuring that each program within CHS keeps on operating within its given authority.
It is in addition presumed that to the extent the strategy seeks to incorporate specific inclusion criteria to candidates as barriers to individual prizes, before doing so, any program will check that its approving agency and policy/management practices allow such incorporation of procedures. It is also presumed that no strategy will be carried out before deciding any intrinsic financial plan inferences.
Goal 1: Avoid cases of homelessness within the CHS clients, comprising persons and family units
In preventing cases of homelessness, the group will identify threat and preventive aspects for preventing instances of homelessness for in danger populations. One activity under this strategy entails, identifying and promoting the utilization of efficient, evidence-oriented homelessness protection programs like exoneration, liberation, or evolution scheduling; critical condition plans; access to prevention instructions, lawful support and security management for casualties of abuse; property-owner arbitration, and family reinforcing, together with managerial and cross-managerial based methods.
Another activity involves, promoting managerial growth and flat leadership between agencies like settlement, mental condition and drug misuse intervention and protection, and justice systems for providing incorporated wide-ranging services with a view of preventing homelessness.
Another activity involves, encouraging stakeholders and societies to experiment with different systems to developing an organized, inclusive approach to dealing with homelessness protection (e.g. providing a leadership that backs up any protection activity, fosters flexibility in the allocation of resources, and allows the growth of an orderly relationship between the group and implementing human service agency).
Another activity entails examining how CHS groups can generate, fund, or perform epidemiological, intrusion, and medical programs study regarding threat and preventive aspects for homelessness and establish protective intrusions that could be offered in Medicare and human services environment that is efficient at protecting vulnerable individuals from going into patterns of housing and individual insecurity that may lead to destituteness (Koegel et al., 2010).
Furthermore, the group will recognize threat and preventive elements with a view of preventing persistent homelessness amid individuals who are already destitute. One activity under this strategy involves, reviewing and generating the released and non-released literature with a view of identifying threat elements linked to persistent homelessness and preventive elements that lower the threat for persistent destituteness.
Another activity entails, examining how CHS can finance or carry out epidemiological, intrusion, and Medicare study regarding threat and preventive elements for persistent homelessness and identification of protective intrusions that could be offered in Medicare and human service environments that are efficient at protecting currently destitute persons from turning out to be persistently homeless.
Another activity involves, developing tailored intervention protecting persistent homelessness particularly for utilization in CHS program that is providing presently homeless persons like PATH, Food for Homeless beneficiaries, and Medicare for the homeless individuals (Corey & Corey, 2006).
Goal 2: Assist qualified, destitute persons and family units obtain socio-economical services
In strengthening promotion and commitment activities, the group will persuade ordinary projects that back up promotion and program leadership with a view of identifying persons and family units facing homelessness as possibly qualified participants for such programs.
Also, the group will recognize and facilitate creative promotion and commitment activities effectively working in active projects like mobile medical services, promotion employees who work as program leaders, and creative hospital-oriented program that operates via the Medicare for the Homeless Project and the PATH programs (Koegel et al., 2010).
In improving the inclusion check guideline, the group will establish instruments for agencies that shorten or rationalize the inclusion check procedure, similar to the Medical Funds and Program Leadership (MFPL)-financed publication named Rationalizing disability: Easy ways for health care provisions, which offers collaboration tools for the socio-economic management’s Homeless Promotion Programs and Assessment (HPPA) project, focused on aiding qualified, persistently homeless persons to apply for Additional Social Fund (ASF) and Socio-economic Disability Insurance (SDI) gains.
The group will also enhance the eligibility of homeless aid activities among the agencies carrying out inclusion and participation duties for ordinary projects (Park et al., 2004).
In examining the working of CHS projects, correctly ordinary program that serves not only homeless individuals but also non-homeless individuals, the group will regulate ordinary CHS projects, determining hindrances to access for individuals facing persistent destituteness and recommend methods for reducing and eliminating such hindrances to services.
Also, the group will focus on identifying policy obstacles and extra problems experienced by any human service agency as it implements its Homeless Strategy Academy community proposals for increasing access to ordinary services (Koegel et al., 2010).
Group process
When the agency developed the Group’s Planning Team on eliminating homelessness, the team was to suggest proposal for an agency-wide framework that would be utilized in the agency’s endeavour to end persistent homelessness and to enhance the agency’s capability of assisting individuals facing persistent homelessness.
Proof of the increasing number of homeless family units’ backs up the increased scope of the agency’s proposal to integrate homeless family units with young people. Results based on available literature indicate that family units are an essential group that requires special consideration and intrusions that may vary from those that are effective to serve destitute persons. Recent study shows that homeless family units are more similar to disadvantaged sheltered family units than to sole destitute persons.
Many types of research have related sheltered and non-sheltered low-earning family units with a view of documenting what features or related aspects affect a low-earnings family’s possibility of facing homelessness. Whereas such researches each assess the incidents of homeless family units in only single region and thus are not globally representative, the studies indicate similar outcomes (Park et al., 2004).
In order to identify which family units might be at highest threat for destituteness, one has to identify personal attributes that might show greater chances to experience homelessness like drug misuse and psychological sickness; family aspects, domestic violence; in addition to background aspects, such as absence of reasonable shelter in the society.
Other concerns associated with the origins and repercussions of family destituteness, such as families’ relationship with the children wellbeing or foster family frameworks, may be critical as the activities of a young person and his or her parents while he or she moves through the housing framework may be different (Koegel et al., 2010).
CHS runs various projects that may be accessible to destitute family units with young people and fugitive and destitute adolescents. The following poster indicates CHS projects (both focused and ordinary) that offer services to destitute family units:
Figure 1: Poster indicating CHS programs
In conclusion, extending the scope of the proposal with a view of encompassing family and young people destituteness will formalize the agency’s currently ongoing efforts in assisting homeless family units with children and young people, in addition to tie the work of the agency’s groups directly to the agency’s goal and objective for the organization as a whole.
References
Corey, M., & Corey, G. (2006). Groups: Process and practice (8th ed.). Buckingham, England: Brooks Cole.
Koegel, P., Elan, M., & Audrey, B. (2010). Childhood risk factors for homelessness among homeless adults. American Journal for Public Health, 85(12), 1642-1649.
Park, J., Metraux, S., Brodbar, G., & Culhane, P. (2004). Child welfare involvement among children in homeless families. Child Welfare, 83(5), 423-436.