Last year, around 118,000 young people presented themselves to their local authority in need of housing support. This is a worrying statistic. Yet it is one that with proactive steps, can be greatly reduced.

It was one of the big topics at the recent National Homelessness Event 2026, which brought together industry experts and passionate speakers to explore how we can support the homeless and reduce the rate of people entering homelessness in the UK. It was a powerfully moving day, where great conversation, networking and learning took place.

One of the stand out sessions was Stephen Elder’s case study, ‘Preventing Youth Homelessness Before It Happens – Working in Schools to Identify and Support Children at Risk’.

Stephen works as Senior National Prevention Manager at Centrepoint, the UK’s leading youth homelessness charity. They are dedicated to their mission: ending youth homelessness by 2037. They believe that anyone born in 2021 can be prevented from becoming homeless in the future if we take the steps now to create support systems.

“The goal is to reduce the number of people becoming homeless early on, and to ensure that when people do become homeless, there is an effective route out so they are homeless for as little time as possible.” – Stephen Elder

Centrepoint believes that the best way to stop youth homelessness and see their vision come to fruition is to work with schools. It is the place that students spend the majority of their time, and short of Centrepoint being in every young person’s living room, schools allow them the best opportunity to access and help children in need.

But firstly, let’s look at what causes young people to become homeless.

Why Young People Enter Homelessness

The primary cause of youth homelessness is relationship breakdown. When young people are living with family and there are issues such as violence, neglect and distrust, it can lead to people taking to the streets, out of desperation, fear or anger.

“There can be many reasons for this, including the mental health of either the child or the parents, substance use within the family, or issues such as coming out to parents, which can increase the risk of relationship breakdown between parents and children.” – Stephen Elder
According to

Centrepoint, two thirds (59%) of young people who come to the charity had to leave their home because of a family relationship breakdown. Here are the some other common reasons they see young people become homeless:

• Financial Pressure
• Cultural Differences
• Peer Influence
• Crime
• Poor Mental Health and Wellbeing
• Poor Transitions from Care

The number of young care leavers (aged 18-20) who are homeless has increased by 54% over the last five years. It is one of the urgent challenges facing children’s social care services. Our upcoming Children in Care Conference 2026 has got a case study from Toya Dunscombe, “Preparing and Supporting Care Leavers Throughout Their Transition Out of The Care System”. This event is bringing together industry experts to explore practical case studies on preparing care leavers for independence and safeguarding unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

The Impact of Youth Homelessness

The instability of homelessness has a bad enough impact on its own. For young people, experiencing such instability at a crucial and evolving time in their lives can have repercussions for years to come.
The largest impacts will be to physical and mental health. Homeless young people often don’t have access to enough nutritious food. They often suffer from anxiety and depression, especially if they are rough sleeping every night. These two factors are a killer combination. Lack of food, plus poor mental health will lead to a complete shut down of a young person’s ability to go to school or work. This is where it spirals.

Whether it is starting a career, or finishing school, these become almost impossible when also contending with homelessness, creating a spiral where it gets even more difficult to escape homelessness. Everything becomes survival. Making it from day to day, instead of building towards a future, whether through a career, education or more.

Where most young people are studying and deciding on a career they want to work towards, homeless young people are often too busy trying to ensure they have somewhere to sleep that evening and what food they’ll be eating.

Upstream England

The Upstream project is inspired by the Geelong Project in Australia, which is a relational, holistic model of working with families and children. The Geelong Project approach reduced youth homelessness in the area by 40% and reduced early school leaving by 20%. Since then, the model has been adopted in places like Canada, the US and the UK.

Upstream England is a schools-based intervention that begins with an online survey. It covers topics like wellbeing, homelessness, resilience and school attendance. This is delivered to students in year 9 or 10 (ages 13-15).

It helps to recognise the cracks in home lives that might lead to youth homelessness. It is also a good tool for schools to gauge where they need to provide support for students suffering with mental health conditions, potential bullying, etc.

Naturally, it isn’t a fool proof method. Many students won’t reveal their issues, but if they can get even a small percentage of people to open up, the survey is a success.

With the results of the surveys, they can then target individuals who need support, providing things like family mediation and support, individual holistic health support and homelessness prevention programmes, including parental support.

Centrepoint wants to form strong partnerships with schools up and down the country to ensure that support and attention is there for students who need it.

The End Goal

The massive goal of ending youth homelessness by 2037 is what drives Centrepoint. The charity wouldn’t make this their mission if they didn’t think it was feasible, making this an excellent opportunity to end youth homelessness in the UK.

Stephen Elder urged the conference attendees that the single best way to engage with potential homeless youth and to stop youth homelessness before it begins is to actively work with schools to find children in need and provide them with support structures before they fall victim to homelessness. School is the best place to administer this support as it is somewhere where young people spend so much of their time.

We’d like to thank Stephen Elder and Centrepoint for their incredibly thought-provoking session. We are proud to run sessions like The National Homelessness Event 2026 and to provide a platform for passionate speakers like Stephen.

Our upcoming Children in Care Conference 2026 will explore similar themes to those explored in this article. Hear from leading voices on key topics such as mental health supportand the prevention of exploitation and criminalisation among care-experienced children. Explore practical case studies on preparing care leavers for independence and safeguarding unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. It takes place on the 12th February, online.