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FINAL EVALUATION OF THE ROUGH SLEEPERS INITIATIVE

APPENDIX THREE: TOPIC GUIDE FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS

Interviews with service providers

Explain study. Ask if the respondent has any further questions about the study. Tell respondent that interview will be recorded and confirm that they are in agreement with this. Inform respondent that their answers are in confidence and will not be used in any form that will identify them as an individual. However, the content of their interview will be referred to and they may be quoted, in an anonymous form, within the report of the research.

Check for any annual reports/data.

Job

Can you tell me what your job involves?

And how does that fit into (whatever their organisation is)?

What is your job within the scheme?

- how many hours a week is that for?

Services

Could they describe their service?

What is/are their service(s) for? What do you think it is (they are) designed to achieve?

• Improve the lives of homeless people on the streets or to get homeless people off the streets?
• resettle people who are sleeping rough (make sure they get access to appropriate housing)?
• provide a broader service? What? A welfare role? Support? Arrange medical and social services?
• other services? What are they?

What services do they provide (if not answered above):

• housing advice and information (including preventative)
• access or rent deposit schemes (including preventative)
• Street work/outreach services (including preventative)
• Direct access accommodation (nightshelters, hostels or other supported housing)
• move-on or transitional accommodation (including preventative)
• tenancy sustainment services (including preventative)
• resettlement services
• Day centre or night centres
• drug and/or alcohol services
• mental health services
• medium and long stay supported housing
• vertically integrated services (e.g. streetwork/outreach plus direct access plus resettlement)
• prison discharge services
• anything else? What?

People sleeping rough

How would they describe the people who use their RSI funded services?

• What proportion are sleeping rough at the time they present to services?
• What proportion have some history of rough sleeping?
• What proportion are lone homeless people without particular experience of rough sleeping?
• How would they describe the needs, characteristics and experiences of the people using their services?

- household type (single, families)

- nature of needs beyond housing

- complex needs

• What are their sources of evidence for this?

RSI

(If they know what RSI is - check) Remember to try to get them to differentiate between RSI funded services and services funded by Supporting People and other sources of revenue or capital funding - some services will be joint RSI and Supporting People funded - ok to talk about those as if RSI funded.

Which services are funded by RSI? In whole or in part?

Has this pattern changed over time?

What has RSI funding allowed them to do?

Would the service they have provided been available or set up anyway without RSI funding?

If the service already existed: What impact has RSI funding had on the service?

- Improved a service or allowed a different type of service to be provided?

Has Supporting People funding taken over from RSI funding?

Services

How successful are their services in helping users to resettle and exit from sleeping

rough?

Is there enough move on accommodation/affordable housing supply?

What about the suitability of existing housing stock?

- is the location suitable/accessible for rough sleepers?

- (include marginalised neighbourhoods with high degree of anti-social behaviour and

other problems)

What about packages of support, e.g. housing, health and social work support for

resettling people sleeping rough? Can those be organised to enable resettlement?

Any services that it is difficult to access? Gaps in services? Which ones and why?

What are their views on the effectiveness of their RSI funded services? Do they feel that they have been successful in achieving their objectives?

What evidence are they asked to provide to show that they have been effective in helping to reduce levels of rough sleeping in their area? What information is gathered?

• evidence from the core monitoring conducted by Glasgow Homelessness Network?

• evidence from any local evaluations of services?

• How far is evidence based on service activity or outcomes?

How would they describe the quality of the evidence that there is about how effective these services are?

- Views on George Street research and number of rough sleepers in their area.

Rough sleeping in their area and the impact of RSI

Is there anything they can say about the causes of rough sleeping? What do they think the important causes are?

• housing markets and house prices
• drugs and alcohol
• mental health needs
• changes in society ('uncaring' or unstable family structures, poor social supports)
• economic change or decline
• childhood experiences and later experience of rough sleeping
• migration of people sleeping rough from other areas of Scotland
• other causes? What are they?

How would they describe the levels of rough sleeping in their area?

Has this increased or decreased over time?

Can they say anything about the extent to which rough sleeping levels have changed since the introduction of RSI funding into their area?

To what extent does rough sleeping remain as a serious social problem within their area?

Has this pattern changed over time? How has it changed?

May be that they cannot answer these questions, but check

How effective has RSI funding been in reducing levels of rough sleeping in their area?

Thinking in terms of the Scottish Executive target of removing the need to sleep rough in Scotland, has that target been achieved in their area? What sort of progress has been made toward it, if it has not been achieved as yet?

What about other effects of RSI?

- Did RSI produce any changes in attitudes towards homeless people locally?

- Has the way in which mainstream services are delivered altered

- in terms of the accessibility of services for clients?

Anything else they would like to say?

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