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Tracking Homelessness: A Feasibility Study
ANNEX 5:DESIGN FOR A PROSCTIVE STUDY OF YOUNG PEOPLE LEAVING CARE
A5.1 Since it is not known how successful a long term follow up might be, it would be advisable initially to consider a two year follow up of people leaving care, with contacts every six months. Should the sample of people with experience of homelessness be sufficiently large, and the benefits seem worthwhile, there would always be the potential to extend the study beyond this timeframe at a later stage. (It may be that there would be interest among other policy makers to begin the research at a point substantially prior to young people leaving care.)
A5.2 Assuming that a sample was selected of those soon to leave care, the population would be around 1,000 young people in a set year. Ideally all these people would be selected for initial interview to ensure that there would still be reasonable numbers in later waves of the study. It might be that people who would not consent to interview, might still consent to their details being checked on administrative databases so that some information about them could be obtained (e.g. health records, records of contact with homelessness services).
A5.3 At each wave of the study, a face to face interview would be undertaken with each panel member. Any that are identified as having experience of homelessness could also be asked to take part in a qualitative interview to obtain more in-depth information - although this would impact on the cost.
A5.4 A cheaper alternative to following-up people at risk of homelessness through face-to-face surveys could be to use administrative data to track. Any individuals identified as homeless could then be traced and further studied. This design does have the disadvantage that information prior to someone becoming homeless could only be collected retrospectively - i.e. we would lose the full-prospective design.
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