Engaging young people: Using the pathways young people take in and out of homelessness as the foundationfor a person centred service culture

This report has been commissioned by Melbourne City Mission, Victoria's largest funded youth homelessness service, to: • Build knowledge and capacity across its own workforce, as well as the broader specialist homelessness services sector. • Inform future service and system design. The report examines how young people make first contact with the homelessness service system, and what their experiences of that system are like. The report addresses: The reports draws on 45 in-depth interviews with people aged between 16 and 24, and then follow up interviews with 26 of the original participants six months later. The 45 participants' experiences of home and family were diverse, and we identify four pathways into homelessness. Each pathway can be regarded as existing on a continuum with Independents at one end, with less complex issues and a more recent history of homelessness; and Escapers at the other end, who often have lengthy histories of homelessness and interactions with assistive service systems, more complex needs involving significant mental health and substance misuse issues, and lengthy periods of child abuse, neglect and trauma. Between these two poles sit those who experienced Cultural Conflict and also the Dissenters. Each pathway shows that young people enter the homelessness service system with different experiences of family and of the support available.