The government guide to support local authorities' planning and commissioning of supported lodgings to tackle youth homelessness. Can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/supported-lodgings-as-a-housing-option-for-young-people
It describes the service as:
“Supported lodgings services provide a young person with a room of their own in a private home where they are a member of the household, but are not expected to become a member of the family. The householder, or host, provides a safe and supportive environment, working alongside professional services to help and support the young person in gaining skills for independent adult life.”
Barnardo’s offer a supported lodgings service and on their own website they explain:
“Supported Lodgings is available to care leavers and other vulnerable young people age 16-21-subject to funding from referring agency- usually social care.
We recruit, assess, train and support local people with a spare room to offer supported lodgings.”
The unique CHARMS supported lodgings module allows agency staff to manage the young people’s and hosts’ records in a secure setting.
Supported lodgings hosts can communicate with the agency’s support staff and they can keep records of young people’s progress and achievements.
The CHARMS Young People’s Application enables them to also access information they need; read case notes; and add their own voice to the record of care and support.
There is no duplication; no files containing sensitive information shared; and every stakeholder can find what they need, when they need it.
If information needs to be shared with local authority social workers, personal advisers and other people providing support they too can access the relevant records in CHARMS. Access rights, under the control of the supported lodgings service, restrict the records to just those which the respective parties need to be able to see.
Personal advisers can record their own casework records directly in CHARMS.
All of this of course gives supported lodgings services confidence in the knowledge that the records they keep are secure and satisfy the requirements of the Children Act 1989, the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 and the Children & Social Work Act 2017.
