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Key findings of research that was carried out between May and October 2011 and in which more than 380 young people (16 – 25) participated. A health questionnaire was completed by about 130 young people from Depaul UK services, and by a control group of 200 young people from around the UK.

Four focus groups and 26 individual interviews with young people also took place. A group of young homeless people were trained in research skills and carried out research with their peers.

Report from a half-day seminar on 7 February 2012, organised by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), ARUP and the Thomas Pocklington Trust.

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Briefing that sets out the policy context around tackling homelessness and addressing the mental health needs of homeless people. It also examines what considerations need to be made when planning, designing and delivering mental health services for homeless people and highlights examples of good practice.

In England, 1.2 million school children in poverty do not get free school meals. 700,000 of them – often from poor, working families – aren’t even entitled to this key support. The remaining 500,000 are put off claiming both by systems that clearly single out those receiving free meals, which can lead to teasing and bullying, and by the poor quality of some of the food on offer. This report shows that giving children in poverty a free school meal makes sense on every level.

Paper that shows how the personalisation agenda encourages innovation, offering the potential to create new markets around localised and individual needs, to focus fiscal resources directly and discretely, and to enable small groups of individuals to ‘positively disrupt’ a complex and opaque system.

It begins with a potted history of personalisation, and ends with five recommendations for the implementation of personalisation, whatever the sector, in a way that increases the availability and use of new, community­based approaches to support and inclusion.

Strategy that has a particular focus on social work in the Health and Social Care (HSC) System which is where the majority of social workers are employed. It is intended as a guide for social workers, their employers, commissioners, education providers and regulators.

Criminal justice, education, youth justice, voluntary and private organisations are also important employers of social workers and this strategy and its proposals will support social workers in these sectors.

Paper that steps back from the current annual debate about the appropriate but small rise in the value of the minimum wage to ask a bolder question: are there more radical reforms of the minimum wage that could raise living standards in the years ahead? It discusses what happens in labour markets where the minimum wage is much higher than it is in Britain today. It also asks whether a smarter design could do more to benefit the groups that are most in need of higher wages?

This report argues that truly transformational public innovation requires creative decommissioning: actively challenging incumbent service models and mindsets to invest properly in new approaches. As public resources are increasingly precious, creative decommissioning will become a critical
capability for public services.

Final report of the Commission on Women Offenders, which was established to examine how female offenders are dealt with in the criminal justice system.

Article that looks at the data included in this release, outlining the methods and definitions before moving on to analyse the data for the last couple of years.

The results show that the financial crisis and subsequent recession had a significant impact on households.