Working with charities to prevent youth homelessness
Categories: Research using linked data, Research findings, Data Insights, ADR Wales, YDG Cymru, Children & young people, Health & wellbeing, Housing & communities, Inequality & social inclusion
3 April 2025
Dr. Ian Thomas and Prof Peter Mackie from the ADR Wales Housing and Homelessness team share insights on their collaboration with youth homelessness charities across Great Britain. By enhancing how charities use data from the 'Upstream' prevention initiative, they aim to drive more effective, evidence-based interventions.
Proactive steps to address youth homelessness
Preventing homelessness means working “upstream” to take proactive steps to support those at risk. In the case of youth homelessness, Upstream is the name given to a school-based intervention designed to identify and assist vulnerable pupils. Originally developed in Australia, it has since been adopted in Wales (by Llamau), England (by Centrepoint), and Scotland (by Rock Trust). Upstream uses a pupil survey to gather insights about home and school life, helping to identify young people who may need support.
However, this survey data can be ‘messy’, making it harder for charities to analyse and use for research. To address this, ADR Wales has been working to clean and refine Upstream survey data to facilitate better use.
Early intervention: The role of data science
In the summer of 2024, Lauren Hill, a third-year computer science student at the University of Bristol, joined the ADR Wales team as part of the SAIL Databank’s Data Science Internship program. This paid internship helps students gain hands-on experience in data science.
With guidance from the ADR Wales team, Lauren worked with anonymised Upstream survey data, writing code to prepare it for research and analysis. Lauren also conducted analysis to help Llamau better understand the pupils being screened by Upstream. The report incorporating Lauren’s findings highlighted key insights on the nature and scope of risk of youth homelessness in Wales—including that 3% of pupils had experienced homelessness in the year before being screened.
Strengthening the evidence behind Upstream
Alongside helping Llamau clean and organise their data, our team at ADR Wales has also conducted research to strengthen the evidence behind the Upstream intervention.
In our latest Data Insight, we analysed how school disengagement (such as truancy and suspension) overlaps with experiences of youth homelessness. The study found that directly asking about homelessness is a much more effective way to identify pupils who may benefit from support, compared to using school disengagement and other observable behaviour to infer potential problems at home—this latter approach being advocated by the Welsh Government.
Next steps for Upstream
As Upstream expands across Great Britain, improving its data system has become essential for onboarding new providers and ensuring consistency in service delivery.
The ADR Wales team are part of a working group, alongside Llamau, Centrepoint, and Rock Trust, to design a new system. Drawing on their experience with homelessness data systems and analysing the Upstream screening tool, the team are helping shape its development.
A key feature under consideration is linking screening surveys to other records, like education data, to support research and evaluation. This could help track outcomes, such as whether pupils who receive Upstream support go on to further or higher education.
This blog was originally published on the ADR Wales website.
Learn more about the ADR Wales Housing and Homelessness research theme.
