Helping young people feel at home in Scotland: Building collaborative and integrated services for youth homeless: a reflexive mapping approach for health and social care integration

In 2017/2018 Scotland had 34,972 homelessness applications. Almost one third of this amount consisted of those aged between 16 to 25 years old (Scottish Government, 2018).

These young people are particularly vulnerable, and their families face multi and complex needs that should be addressed by different services, during the different stages of homelessness (before becoming homeless, during and after). Understanding the numerous pathways on this journey regarding their rights to receive wider, person-centred and simultaneous care this project focused its attention on what is essential in improving professional practice and service provision for these groups. Through a reflexive mapping approach for health and social care integration, the voices of these youth were incorporated using elements of arts, music and theatre of the oppressed. Respecting and facilitating their own methods of communication, this programme legitimised their knowledge, experiences and beliefs to identify what is meaningful to them in terms of the need to receive the right type of support at the right stage of their journey. The findings set up recommendations on main principles to guide the work with young people and to improve youth homelessness service provision. Forty-five national and international organizations and services were involved in this programme.