According to a new report released by the Mental Health Foundation and Centrepoint, the increasing numbers of young homeless people with mental health problems are not getting adequate support because services rarely work together to provide the necessary help.
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The report - Making the Link between Mental Health and Youth Homelessness - claims that despite these figures, staff working within housing and youth homelessness services lack the necessary skills to deal with mental health issues and need specialist training. They also struggle to access appropriate support for young people experiencing mental distress. Mental health assessment waiting times are long and this lack of early intervention leaves young people vulnerable to developing more entrenched mental health problems. As a result young people often reach crisis point before being seen by a mental health team.
The report highlights that some voluntary sector housing and homelessness support services encounter barriers when trying to refer young people to the statutory sector. This is because mental health services are under resourced and some statutory services are reluctant to accept referrals from the voluntary sector.
The research also found that young people with both mental health and drug and alcohol problems often do not get the help they need because services rarely work together making it difficult to provide complete care packages.
The charities make a number of recommendations in the report. First among these is a call for joined up commissioning of integrated services across sectors, and for mechanisms to enable rapid access to specialist mental health and drug and alcohol services when needed by young people.
More than �4 million is to be spent upgrading facilities at two homeless assessment centres in Liverpool. The Government has awarded Liverpool City Council one of the highest grants outside London after the Department for Communities and Local Government classed Liverpool's plans as "a model of best practice that will offer inspiration to the rest of the country." The money will be used to totally transform the two centres in north Liverpool where people claiming to be homeless are assessed.
The money will be spent demolishing and rebuilding the existing Men's Direct Access Centre and fully refurbishing the women's centre. Improved education and training facilities and better links with health, education and employment providers will all be incorporated into the centres.
Both centres will feature separate facilities for young people, better site security, new CCTV systems, and more welcoming reception areas. Local people are being invited to talk to staff at the two centres and give feedback on the plans.
In its response to the Housing Corporation's consultation paper on tackling homelessness, the National Housing Federation recommended the appointment of a homelessness champion in each region. The Federation see a role for a strategic approach to ensure regional homelessness initiatives tie in with other national polices, such as Supporting People.
The Federation's response calls for a homeless champion for each region to sit on the regional assembly and take responsibility for wider policy cohesion.
The Housing Corporation had in excess of 130 responses to its consultation paper.
Residents of an Oxford homeless hostel have returned to a modern new-look home, following a �2.4 million refurbishment of the City centre building. Dominion Housing Group's Simon House hostel on Paradise Street is one of the largest in Oxford. It is now back up and running more than half way through a year long renovation project, in which residents were relocated into temporary accommodation in the east of the City.
Due for final completion in October 2006, the early 1980s hostel now boasts an increased capacity of 52 rooms, most with new en-suite facilities, a new kitchen and dining area, and a forthcoming construction training workshop.
Oxford City Council secured a �1,315,000 grant from the Department for Communities and Local Government.
The project also extends to helping improve the overall wellbeing of the residents, including the creation of a new 'Life Skills Co-ordinator' role, funded and supported by Oxford City Council, to develop a programme of workshops and training opportunities, ranging from IT to cooking.
Simon House is staffed 24-hours a day and residents are fully catered for in a supportive environment, where they are helped to address their problems; gain relevant skills and training; and move on to permanent, independent accommodation.
Homelessness in Northern Ireland is on the increase, with the number of households presenting as homeless almost doubling in the past six years. Statistics from the Northern Ireland Department of Social Development show that: