We’re starting a new chapter at Justlife, undertaking a 12-month pilot project in Brighton to support families in temporary accommodation.
Over the next 12 months, our team will work with families in Brighton and Hove, offering practical support such as move-in kits, signposting to advice and information, and help to rebuild confidence during what can be an extremely difficult and uncertain time.
Support can't be considered an optional extra. It is essential to help people stabilise, recover, and move forward. Through this new project, we’ll provide intensive trauma-informed support to families living in temporary accommodation while learning what works and sharing that knowledge to improve support and experiences in temporary accommodation across the country.
We’ll also use everything we learn to develop training for frontline staff and produce information packs outlining rights, responsibilities, and relevant local services for people in temporary accommodation. As with all our support work, the learning from this pilot will also inform our campaigning and research work, helping us push for temporary accommodation systems that better support the people who rely on them.
The support we provide and everything we’ll learn over the next 12 months will all go towards ensuring that stays in temporary accommodation are short, safe and healthy.
These next steps wouldn’t have been possible without the incredible support from our colleagues, charity funders, and councils.
Specifically, we can’t thank Brighton and Hove City Council enough for providing us with the funding to support families in temporary accommodation within the city of Brighton for the next 12 months. Our team will provide intensive, trauma-informed support for families living in temporary accommodation, offering practical support, such as move-in kits, and signposting to advice and information, while helping them rebuild their confidence to make their transition to and time in temporary accommodation as easy and short as possible.
This work will support vulnerable people; as such, we’ve been thinking carefully about our role, our responsibilities, and how we can ensure this work is grounded in lessons and advice from our sector.
We’re hugely grateful to everyone who has shared their time, knowledge and support with us, including Jo Moon and Ruth Welford at Barnardos, Angie Ouattara from Shared Health Foundation, Vickie Leigh from Greater Manchester Academies Trust, John Ryan and Emma Nay from the Home Project at Shelter, and Karen Davey from Cardinal Hume Centre.
Thank you for helping give us the knowledge and confidence to take this next step.
None of the families we’ll support over the next 12 months, or the knowledge we’ll learn and pass on, creating best practices and practical advice and guides, would have been possible without the support of the people and teams mentioned above.
