Connected service in Rochdale
In a move aimed to reduce bureaucracy and increase flexibility, earlier this year, Rochale Council took a bold step in bringing external contracts for homelessness services and housing response in-house.
I spent the day in Rochdale and am very thankful to Stephen Broughton, their Housing Project Officer, who was so kind with his information, introductions and his time.
More than 218,000 people live in the Borough of Rochdale which is 25km and 20 minutes by train from Manchester city.
About 20,000 people sit on the housing waiting list and around 8-10 people are recorded sleeping rough each month. Emerging from the pandemic, pressure on limited housing stock is rising, with the Council now opening around 25 per cent more homelessness cases when than at the start of 2000.
In these difficult circumstances, Rochade are committed to improving service delivery and I was interested to hear about their strategic shift towards a connected service model, combining Council and partner organisation effort, making best use of diverse skills and expertise.
What's a council's role in responding to homelessness?
Being interested in understanding the role that councils play in the
homelessness space, I could see some of this in action when I sat in on a
Multi-Disciplinary Team meeting that streamlined case management for one high
needs client with high medical risk. Council housing and adult services
officers worked with nursing and frontline support services to work on multiple health and AOD requirements.
Over a Teams call, the group worked systematically to address each of the client's complex needs. Any group member can call a MDT meeting when a complex case needs attention from many sides. Depending the situation, these meetings will bring in many different parts of council and the community services sector, including library staff, who the homelessness and housing team have recognised as 'extra eyes'.
Improving service practice
It was at the MTD meeting that I first saw the Changing Futures work in action. It's a three year, £64 million programme, with a large chunk of money coming from the National Lottery Community Fund.
In Rochdale it has funded four positions within the service sector, focusing on adults experiencing multiple disadvantage – including combinations of homelessness, substance misuse, mental health issues, domestic abuse and contact with the criminal justice system.
I was so fortunate to sit down with Tony, from local charity Sanctuary Trust, who sits in one of the Changing Futures funded positions, located at the Reaching out centre. He told me that he uses the opportunity to work on a small case load, 'picking out people who slip between the cracks and looking at what barriers they face in the system.'
Tony is constantly testing and seeding different ideas, collecting data and experiences from multiple situations and feeding that back.
"I like to work with people who have a living experience of homelessness. "I have a lived experience, but that was ten years ago. It's not current.
"I run a men's group on a Tuesday evening and my partner runs a women' group on a Wednesday evening.
"In this program we get first-hand experience. We look at what is good and bad about services and feed that back to the GMCA (Greater Manchester Combined Authority). Changing Futures is trailblazing."
***
Points of interest in Rochdale:
- Recently moved homelessness services and housing response in-house
- Connected services model
- Council's commitment to internal and external coordination is strong.
- Changing Futures program (run through local services) focuses on identifying response barriers and trialling new ways of working that is fed up into government.
***
Many thanks to Stephen Broughton, Housing Project Officer (Homelessness)
at Rochdale Borough Council for being so kind with his time when I visited
Rochdale on 26/9/22.
This looks like the beginning of an fabulous journey. The vast array of people driving organisations to fulfil interlinked critical services is outstanding, and we look forward to learning more. I'd be interested to know how we maintain and increase the momentum with a human centred collective impact approach, whilst challenged by inefficiencies at both federal and state level. How do we ensure accessibility to these programs whilst maintaining the flexibility of unique delivery methods. The learning that you'll bring back will be invaluable.
ReplyDelete