Supporting Clients/ Service Users

Those experiencing homelessness face many challenges in developing employability skills and/or taking advantage of employment, training or education opportunities. Compared to the housed population, homeless people have lower than average levels of literacy and qualifications. People experiencing homelessness are also more likely to have encountered stigmatisation and to have had negative experience within education or the workplace. The nature of support needs such as substance use can also mean that there is a correlated higher instance of criminal offending history.

Homelessness impacts significantly on levels of self esteem, confidence and subsequently motivation levels can be low, with a greater fear of failure attached to starting the journey towards work. Situational factors such as the fear of losing accommodation again if benefits income is lost or altered can also be significant in determining a homeless persons’ engagement with the employability process. People living in temporary accommodation such as hostels or supported accommodation may also find that their living arrangements are not conducive to keeping regular hours. Peer influences in this context can also play a determining role in levels of engagement. There are, therefore, many factors which can influence and shape when and how a person who is homeless will engage with the journey to work.

• Taking into account people’s fears and potential risks and building robust information networks to support and reassure the client.
• Embedding a culture of aspiration whereby assumptions about experience and expectations are not casually made but identified through assessment. Building services around what actually appeals to clients and offering opportunities for positive outcomes, however, small, can help build a culture of aspiration. 
• The training in, and use of motivational interviewing and CBT skills can also be of benefit.
• Tailored, flexible support. Traditional learning routes may not always be the most appropriate. For example, learning in groups in colleges may be overwhelming & intimidating. Often engagement with the process will ebb and flow and provision for this to happen and be supported should be made. Folio based learning can aid in this respect as clients can build their evidence base of learning at their own pace.
• Many homeless clients will be at the very beginning of the employability spectrum, due to range of needs, previous experiences, or current circumstances. It is vital, therefore, that a culture of employability is embedded within supporting organisations to maximise the chances of engagement with the more formal aspects of the employability process.
• Creating a culture wherein employability is seen as central and positive requires staff awareness building; individual and team training, and the embedding of employability within both the business and action planning processes.
• Pre-vocational training opportunities are particularly relevant with homeless people as the first access point to the longer process. Pre-vocational training or meaningful occupation can be embedded within projects with relatively low costs and flexibility. For example, a London hostel for street homeless men with substance use issues achieved significant success in many areas with a programme of military fitness sessions. The hostel refurbishment programme in England focuses on redeveloped projects being Places of Change where positive life change occurs and plays an important part in the prevention agenda.
• In supporting homeless people through the employability pipeline it is important to take a holistic approach and work in partnership with key agencies such as health, specialist support services such as around mental health, offending and substance use, and to build and nurture relationships with education providers, employers, and both the local and business communities.
• Agreed single or common assessment tools are extremely useful in ensuring that pathways are clearly defined and supported by all involved.
• The value of peer mentoring is increasingly being recognised in terms of supporting homelessness people. Homelessness organisations are also increasingly running trainee programmes for clients and actively recruiting former clients/ service users as employees (see www.thamesreach.org or www.mungos.org) all of which play an important part in supporting homeless people into employment.