Demonstrating Need and Value and Getting Community Support

The ability of agencies to show the value of the work that they do and to identify additional needs within their region is important in influencing local strategy and in securing future funding for existing services. Of course, this is not just true for rural services, but in areas where street counts are all-but-redundant it can be difficult to demonstrate how many current and potential clients have or need access to services.

Homeless Watch in Nottinghamshire is a great example of agencies working together to directly inform local strategy by recording strategically relevant information about their service users that draws a picture of the scale of homelessness in their area, the referral routes between services and where there are gaps in local provision. This emphasises the point made elsewhere, that partnership working is of great importance in rural areas where it can be all-too-easy for agencies to work in isolation, and that through initiatives such as this, and through attendance at regional forums organisations can exert individual and collective influence on local strategy and decisions relating to funding and commissioning.

In 2002, Sheffield Hallam University, in partnership with the Countryside Agency and North Lincolnshire Council, produced step-by-step guidance for local authorities and service providers on more accurately recording the scale and nature of homelessness in rural areas. Estimating Homelessness In Rural Areas highlights the need to involve local agencies throughout the process of data collection, and the ways in which both underestimating the scale of homelessness and double-counting service users can be avoided.

Individual organisations can also look to demonstrate the value of their service to current and prospective funders through keeping records of their work. Soft outcomes models such at the Outcomes Star are easily adaptable to existing most support planning and needs assessment processes and can be completed relatively quickly. They can provide meaningful information about the positive changes that your service is able to effect with individual clients which in turn can support funding bids. You can find out more about outcomes here.

Actively engaging with the local community about the work you do, for example by holding an open day where the public can talk with staff and service users, can really help to garner support for projects, including donations and even volunteers. For instance, Barrow Borough Council recently held a 'Homelessness Awareness Day', with local service providers present to inform people about their services and a question and answer session involved a number of agencies and representatives from the council.

Some agencies report facing objections to their services and a "culture of resistance" whereby people in need of services will be reluctant to access them for fear of social stigma. As the manager of a mediation service told us, "It's interesting how one of the strengths of rural communities can also be such a problem. Everyone knows each other, so people worry that if they're seen to have a problem soon everyone will know about it." Such attitudes can be countered to some extent by open days and public events. A number of agencies have made services more welcoming by combining them with public spaces such as cafes. For example, the entrance to Mendip YMCA's building in Wells is a cafe that is open to the public, and young people wishing to access the service enter the building through the cafe entrance where a wide range of leaflets about local services are available.

Some agencies have established a presence in the local community in other ways. Several organisations that responded to the questionnaire told us how they receive local council funding to visit local schools, often with service users, to talk about their services and the realities of being homeless. And at least one advice and information service has a regular advice column in a local newspaper, covering a range of case studies and recurring issues from their work.

Establishing a strong community presence can help to extend partnership working and funding opportunities. For instance, Eden Rural Foyer has, via its public internet cafe and renting meeting rooms and IT resources to other local groups at reduced rates, has developed extensive working with local agencies, the council and education providers. Indeed, some of the most successful agencies that we have seen in recent months have been there that have established links across their region in this way and grown to be a hub for a wide range of interlinking services.