A new evaluation of Lifelong Links has found that it significantly reduces homelessness amongst care leavers. The study by the Policy Institute at King’s College London for the Centre for Homelessness Impact has found that that the Lifelong Links approach, which helps build family support networks for care leavers, reduces the risk of homelessness by 10%.
Lifelong Links is an innovative approach developed by Family Rights Group, in which a coordinator works with a child in care to identify people who are important to them, such as relatives, former foster carers or teachers. Adults who agree to do so are brought together with the child for a family group conference to produce a plan to support the child into adulthood, which becomes embedded in the child’s care plan.
Lifelong Links was developed by Family Rights Group, a charity, and began in 2017 as a three-year pilot in seven local authorities, funded by the Department for Education. It was extended to 12 local authorities in England and is also being trialled in Scotland. Currently 32 local authorities in Britain offer a Lifelong Links service to children in care.
Researchers analysed a dataset that combines the number of people in a local authority assessed as at risk of homelessness in a given year and young people aged under 21 who left care in each area. The aged cut-off was chosen as Lifelong Links had only operated for three years in the areas from which samples were taken.
Across multiple analyses, researchers found a 10% reduction in the risk of a young care leaver being assessed as at risk of homelessness in their most robust model. The study is one of five impact evaluations of interventions that seek to reduce homelessness among young people leaving care carried out by King’s Policy Institute and the Centre for Homelessness Impact, which were funded by the UK Cabinet Office’s Evaluation Accelerator Fund.
The study’s final report can be found here.
More information about Lifelong Links can be found here.