Aberdeen Foyer

Aberdeen Foyer has been awarded a grant from the Homewards Fund to deliver its ‘Upstream Aberdeen’ project to prevent youth homelessness through early identification and intervention in secondary schools across the city.

Upstream is a scheme to prevent homelessness based in schools. It starts with a survey – the survey identifies young people at risk of homelessness by asking questions about wellbeing, resilience, education and housing. Each identified child, and their family, then received tailored one-to-one support. This can include conflict resolution, mediation or practical support with housing.

The work will take place in two schools in the initial academic year, expanding to four schools in the second year.

The programme aims to create lasting systems change, establishing a collaborative multi-agency group, including young people with lived experience, to drive widespread adoption of prevention approaches. The group will capture learning, support with challenges, and work toward shifting spend from crisis response to early intervention.

This work directly addresses a strategic priority in Aberdeen’s Homewards Local Action Plan by embedding homelessness prevention through education and early risk identification, and has strong buy-in from statutory partners across education, housing and social work.