16 and 17 year old young people at risk of homelessness

Buckinghamshire Children’s Services and YOS will work in partnership to ensure that young people aged 16 and 17 who are leaving custody and may be homeless or at risk of homelessness have suitable accommodation available on release and this will be jointly planned during resettlement planning.

If the young person already has an allocated Buckinghamshire social worker, they should attend any resettlement meetings; a representative from Buckinghamshire Children’s Services should also attend if a young person will be referred to Buckinghamshire under this protocol. Buckinghamshire Children’s Services should always attend where the young person was looked after prior to custody and will need to become looked after again on release.

Where possible, the focus of work should be ensuring young people can return home to live with their family or another family member and mediation services or a Family Group Conference should be considered to support this.