Everyone knows there is a link between decent housing and improved health and wellbeing. It appears so obvious but this is an area that is still frequently ignored in commissioning improvements in health and wellbeing.
Whilst you will see the recognition of the role of housing in Local Authority Health and Wellbeing Strategies it is often the case that this recognition is not reflected in commissioning plans. One of the key reasons for this is that, whilst we instinctively know the value of housing in improving health, organisations that support people to maintain tenancies have historically found it difficult to explicitly link their activity to improved health.
We believe that this link can be demonstrated.
Following on from the work we have been doing to help organisations who support people diagnosed with Prediabetes, we have been looking at how we can apply National Outcomes Frameworks to supported housing. This has involved looking through all of the relevant National Outcomes Frameworks and extracting those issues that commonly impact people accessing social housing.
The issues we have identified range across socio-economic, behavioural and status outcomes. They cover issues such as being a victim of domestic abuse, issues relating to substance misuse and access to training and education in order to help people gain employment.
Our Supported Housing Risk Map covers a broad range of issues that allows a service to build a comprehensive picture of the individual they are supporting in a system that does not require either questions or paper forms.
One of the common questions we are asked is “what makes your system different to the other outcomes system that cover housing?”
We differ from many of the existing outcome systems in two fundamental ways.
Most importantly we can explicitly link the impact you have with individuals to National Outcome Frameworks. This means you can report to your commissioners and funders the impact you have in relation to the policy environment in which they have to account for themselves. Because the policy environment constantly changes we manage the relationship between your activity and changes in Government priorities, this means you remain consistent in what you measure.
Secondly we have tried to remove subjectivity from measuring impact. Whilst many systems will ask clients to measure their change in terms of largely abstract concepts such as improved physical and mental health; we believe these are too vague to help you measure like for like. One person’s perception of their improvement in overall physical health, on a scale, will be different to another’s. Their response will be influenced by variables such as their situation at that particular moment, their recollection of their previous response or even the relationship and gratitude they have for the service they are being provided.
Through extracting definitions of issues from National Outcomes Frameworks we provide empirical measurement of changes that happen with an individual. This means you can have confidence of measuring an individual’s progress over time but you can also compare the outcomes you have with different people.
This method of measuring outcomes also provides the added benefit of being able to demonstrate the impact you have in areas that you do not expect. For example, did you know that through helping an individual to move from temporary to permanent accommodation you can demonstrate impact on National Outcome Frameworks such as: –
- The Public Health Outcome Framework
- The Social Justice Outcome Framework
- N.I.C.E Guidance
- Adult Social Care Outcome Framework
- Health Child Programme
We can demonstrate these links down to the specific outcomes and references in each document.
If you would like to know more about how our Risk Tracker system works you can watch the video we have made that shows it in action.
You can also contact us directly to talk about how we can help your organisation to demonstrate the impact that it has by emailing info@insideoutcomes.co.uk
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