A BBC News article published this week showcases how data collected through Llamau’s Upstream Cymru screening surveys has helped identify young people at risk of experiencing homelessness and connect them with early support, changing lives and preventing crises before they happen.
Supporting this work has been a longstanding partnership between Llamau and ADR Wales. Llamau is a charity working in Wales that supports young people, women and children at risk of or experiencing homelessness. For a number of years, ADR Wales, through its Housing and Homelessness programme, has worked closely with the charity to better understand and analyse Upstream data, helping to strengthen data collection processes and improve the evidence base on youth homelessness.
In particular, Dr Ian Thomas, Academic Lead for ADR Wales’ Housing and Homelessness body of work, based at WISERD, has supported Llamau in developing approaches that enable more robust analysis and deeper insights into the factors that place young people at risk of experiencing homelessness.
Dr Ian Thomas said: “Upstream Cymru was born out of a desire to end youth homelessness in Wales. Since then, it has grown into a UK-wide movement to prevent youth homelessness and is now being delivered across all four nations. Emily’s story is a powerful reminder of the difference that early support and intervention can make in young people’s lives. As Upstream continues to build momentum, we have an opportunity to support more young people to thrive and reduce the risk of homelessness for future generations.”
This collaboration has contributed to the evolution of Upstream Cymru’s data collection and analysis methods, generating new evidence on youth homelessness, educational disengagement and groups of young people facing heightened risk. The work has helped ensure that data is not only collected effectively but used to inform action, supporting practitioners and policymakers to intervene earlier and improve outcomes for vulnerable young people across Wales.
Read more on BBC News and listen on BBC Radio Wales (1:20 for news summary, 1:00:11 to hear from Yvonne Connolly, Operational Director at Llamau and 1:08:50 to hear from Emily Mapley about her experience with the survey).
If you are interested in this area of research, please consider joining WISERD’s Wales Housing and Homelessness Research Network. The network helps bring the important research on housing and homelessness being done by different sectors and organisations together so evidence can be shared, strengthened, and used to make a real difference.
ADR Wales unites specialists in each field from Population Data Science at Swansea University and WISERD at Cardiff University with statisticians, economists and social researchers from Welsh Government. The cutting-edge data analysis techniques and research excellence developed, along with the world-renowned SAIL Databank, allow the delivery of robust, secure and informative research.
Image credit: Georgijevic via iStock.