Adult Safeguarding Responses to Homelessness and Self-neglect
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Opening the 'Too Difficult Box': Strengthening Adult Safeguarding Responses to Homelessness and Self-neglect.
IRAS ID
285463
Contact name
Michelle Cornes
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King's College London
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, months, days
Research summary
The Care Act is a law which for the first time tells councils what to do to help people keep safe from abuse or neglect.
In each area across the country there are groups of professionals that work to keep people safe: these are called Adult Safeguarding Boards. We will work with three of these Boards to look at how we can help people who are homeless and not looking after themselves properly. Not looking after yourself is called self-neglect.
We know it is hard for people to look after themselves when living on the street. Some people take drugs or drink to cope and that can make it more difficult to get help. We will follow 30 people who are homeless and who are known to the council because there are concerns about self-neglect to see what happens to them. Over a period of three months we will talk to them to find out what they feel about being safeguarded and how they've coped with being homeless. Some of our researchers have been homeless and have experienced self-neglect and being safeguarded.
We will also talk to 20 workers in each of the three areas, professionals who work with people who are homeless and self-neglect. Workers can often disagree about the way to help someone, and this can lead to poor care where the person is hurt or dies. Boards should look into this to find out what went wrong. This is called a Safeguarding Adults Review. The government is concerned that not enough reviews are carried out when a homeless person dies and that lessons are not learned.
We will share everything we learn from workers and from people with lived experience to help Boards change how they help local people who are homeless and self-neglect to be safe.
REC name
Social Care REC
REC reference
20/IEC08/0040
Date of REC Opinion
9 Feb 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion