Housing project for young adult carers is addressing a gap in provision
Commonweal Housing, Learning and Work Institute and Quaker Social Action have today published interim findings of an evaluation of the Move On Up project, which provides housing and tailored support to young adult carers.
The paper finds that Move On Up is addressing a gap in the current landscape of combined housing provision and support for carers. Currently, housing services do not typically consider caring as a contributing factor to youth homelessness, and carers’ services are able to offer little in the way of housing support to young adult carers.
According to the paper, there is a demand for projects similar to Move On Up in other parts of London and England. The paper highlights the factors to be considered when replicating the project, including having expertise in both supporting young adult carers and running a housing project.
One client said of the project:
“It’s given me more of a sense of identity. In some way, my life always just revolved around taking care of them, and I think I was just viewed as the spare child who would just deal with anything… now, I think I’m regarded more as my own person.”
Move On Up is a housing project for young adult carers which is being delivered by Quaker Social Action (QSA) in partnership with Commonweal Housing. Move On Up is testing whether a shared housing pathway, alongside empathetic and specialist support, is effective in securing a range of positive outcomes for carers aged 18-25 years and its potential for replication elsewhere.
Learning and Work Institute (L&W) is conducting an independent evaluation of Move On Up. The evaluation will be undertaking a final wave of data collection in February/March 2020. The final evaluation report will be published in the summer of 2020.