St BASILS RESETTLEMENT CENTRE & FLOATING SUPPORT SERVICES
St Basils Resettlement Centre is based in the city centre and is the base for St Basils Floating Support Services. The centre also provides a central base for young people citywide to access groupwork and activities, which contributes towards their preparation for independent living.
St Basils floating support services has access to permanent accommodation to enable a young person to move on from supported accommodation. The properties are offered via a consortia of Registered Social Landlords and via a service level agreement with the local authority to interview and re-house eligible young people.
St Basils Floating Support services offers support to young people in specialist areas which are:
- Floating Support for Care Leavers
- Floating Support for Young Families
- Floating Support for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender young people LGBT
- Floating Support for young people with Mental Health issues
- Floating Support for young refugees
- Floating Support for young people at risk and from BME groups
- Intensive Floating Support
A Floating Support Service is also provided in Solihull and Redditch for vulnerable young people who are at risk of becoming homeless.
Accessing the accommodation that young people need to make this first sustainable move is a challenge but we have been able to develop networks and links with both Housing Associations and with Local Authorities so that we have access to a wider range of accommodation.
The challenge facing us
Preventing repeat homelessness for young people is about more than just finding people a place to live. We have to help young people develop the skills, confidence and networks of support that will see them through their early adult life.
All young people have to make the journey from adolescence to adulthood in some way, for most it is challenging but not too risky for some it is a highly risky transition. Our challenge is to promote the most positive transition possible.
The basic life skills of paying bills etc are important but the evidence suggests that young people have to develop a much broader base of skills and ways of behaving, for example; positive ways of coping with crisis, constructive ways of relating to others, being actively involved in training or work. All these help young people to make a sustained success of their tenancies and more importantly their lives but the young person’s previous experience can make that very hard to achieve.
The challenge for some young people is to ensure that they stick with us as they have to face the tough challenges inherent in making the transition to adult life. This means planning our work with them so that they deal with the inevitable crisis, bills, relationship break up in positive ways instead of falling back on old ways of coping e.g. ‘doing a runner’.
A further challenge is to help the young person, and service providers, view their first tenancy as the start of a bigger journey and to help them see that the way in which they manage this tenancy can have long term implications, e.g. making it harder or easier to get their first shared tenancy with a future partner.
