Shelter’s Children’s Service had Regional Children’s Co-ordinators based in Liverpool, Newcastle, London and Bristol, who worked with local and regional partners across England to improve outcomes for children, families and under 18s who are living independently.

Regional Children’s Co-ordinators in the north west are bringing the programme to its conclusion and will be in post until June 2012.

Promoting the Children’s Service Advice Line

Regional Children’s Co-ordinators have been pivotal in raising awareness of the Children’s Service Advice Line. This was particularly important when the service was first launched, as children’s centres were also quite new, and many were still being established. This marketing role was also crucial as the service extended to a range of further children's sector services.

Raising awareness of homelessness and its impact on children

It is beyond doubt that bad housing has a detrimental impact on children’s health, education and behaviour, making it harder for them to fulfil their potential. Their school attendance and educational achievement may be affected and they are at greater risk of accident or injury.

One of the key objectives of our Regional Children’s Co-ordinators is to raise awareness amongst professionals in children’s services of the impact of homelessness and poor housing on children and families. We have coordinated housing information workshops across the country to support staff working within local authorities and partner agencies, and produced a series of publications aimed at professional audiences.

Highlighting good practice

Our Regional Children’s Co-ordinators have been working with regional and local Government to identify and highlight good practice in joint working between housing and children’s services, which can reduce child homelessness and the impact it has on vulnerable children and families.

We produced Improving outcomes for children and young people in housing need, a benchmarking guide for joint working between services, which sets out Shelter’s model for effective joint working between housing and children’s services, and guidance on implementing our recommendations. We intend to roll out this guide through training and related events.

Contacting us

To find out more about our influencing and policy work, please email childrens_service@shelter.org.uk .