Publications

The Together Service is an Infant-Parent Service which provides a universal offer to all families registered at a GP practice. A Clinical Psychologist provides support from planning a pregnancy through a child’s first year of life. The input is tailored to suit the family’s needs. It draws on various psychological models including attachment theory, infant-parent psychotherapy, compassion-focussed therapy and narrative approaches. The service was piloted in Manchester from January 2020-2021. This report updates on the five years since then, including the outreach work with homeless families that developed from the pilot.

There is a growing body of research around the importance of the first 1,001 days for babies (pregnancy to age two), the crucial role the parent-infant relationship plays and the impact that inequality has on this period of life and beyond.

The Together Service aims to provide support for families facing inequalities. The rationale is that placing this universal support in primary care reduces stigma, increases accessibility and reaches the underserved populations with the greatest need. This is in line with the NHS 10-year plan; moving from ‘hospital to community’, ‘sickness to prevention’ (NHS, 2019) and the ‘two triangle’ model (Hogg, 2024).

Shared Health Foundation is a philanthropically funded CIC working to address health inequalities exacerbated by poverty. In response to growing concerns about standards in temporary accommodation, the Foundation launched a Homeless Families project, a service supporting homeless families and pregnant women placed in emergency and temporary accommodation in Oldham. From its inception, the service was based on the Focused Care model and was informed by midwifery frameworks and principles. Committed to reducing health inequalities, the service looked upstream to mitigate the negative impact of homelessness. Shared Health’s trauma-informed, practice-based evidence, along with its specialist clinical insights, brought together a multi-disciplinary team, and we have shone a spotlight on the preventable health inequalities which can be affected by homelessness.

Rising concerns regarding the deepening housing crisis are being voiced by professionals and service providers across hospital waiting rooms, social and educational settings, and the weight of those who fall through the net is increasingly being met by charity and faith sector organisations. There is a deep sense of foreboding and urgent need to redress our existing systems, not by “throwing the baby out with the bath water” but by collating the wisdom from practice-based evidence and realigning the provision of services with the voice of the child at its heart.

This report aims to present the findings of Shared Health when examining the impact of local authority provision for homeless families through a maternal and reproductive health inequalities lens. Our service for families without a stable home identified a disproportionate number of women, many experiencing pregnancy alongside homelessness.

The work on the ground is led by a registered midwife with 25 years’ experience working in areas of deprivation and consequently provides a unique midwifery-informed approach at our base called “The Crib”. The service receives referrals from the local authority in one of Greater Manchester’s most deprived boroughs, and we respond and offer support to those families with children, prioritising pregnant women and those with preschool children. Their lived experiences inform the service and how it responds to meet our guiding principle of health equity. We value co-production, and Shared Health wish to honour the incredible resilience of our families and their dedication to support our work and the compassion they show for others who are also in the journey themselves. With their consent, this report will ensure their stories are told, their voices are heard, and the whisper of the unborn is echoed.

A new report likens the experiences of living in temporary accommodation for neurodivergent children to a form of “torture”. 

The report, titled ‘It’s like torture: Life in Temporary Accommodation for Neurodivergent Children and their Families’, highlights the findings of a UK-wide call for evidence launched by Dr Rosalie Warnock and Professor Katherine Brickell from King’s College London, through the All Party Parliamentary Group for Households in Temporary Accommodation, and with support from the Shared Health Foundation, Justlife, and Autistica.

This report has been released as part of a wider research project, called the Sensory Lives Project, that aims to generate a better understanding of how homeless families experience living with a neurodivergent child in temporary accommodation. 

There is no official data on how many children living in temporary accommodation are neurodivergent; however, the report estimates that between 25,000 and 120,000 such children are affected in England. Given that 172,420 children in total are currently living in temporary accommodation, this estimate, even at its lowest end, underscores the significant scale of the issue. 

Despite this, neurodivergent children in temporary accommodation have been omitted from Government strategies and policy decisions. 

This call for evidence is a first of its kind, with the effects of homelessness specifically on children with neurodivergences being a significantly under-researched area. Having received 280 individual responses from practitioners and parents from across the UK, the findings uncover the shocking reality that vulnerable children are forced to endure. 

The average time spent in temporary accommodation for the respondents was 4.5 years, which is anything but ‘temporary’ within the childhoods of children trapped into this crisis. 

It is apparent within the report that every aspect of homelessness provides a new challenge for neurodivergent children. They rely on routine, predictability, and secure environments with a reasonable amount of space to regulate. Temporary accommodation offers the antithesis of this, with families being moved to different accommodations with short/no notice, away from support networks, that may be unsuitable and of a poor standard. It becomes impossible for children to be able to regulate in such an environment, having significant impacts on their physical and emotional wellbeing, to the extent that the report refers to these impacts as “child cruelty”. 

The theme of ‘torture’ underpinning this report is influenced by the experiences of children that have been subjected to “unrelenting sensory assault” that is “psychologically excruciating”, caused by living in temporary accommodation. On top of this, forms of torture, including sleep and sensory deprivation, were highlighted as common occurrences for neurodivergent children in unsuitable accommodation. 

On the back of this, the report calls for a series of recommendations that are targeted at local and national governments to improve the experiences of neurodivergent children living in temporary accommodation. 

Summary of recommendations include:

1. Incorporating the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into UK domestic law, so its provisions are legally binding. 
2. Fixing the data gap, such as by improving H-CLIC data collection to record if a child has an EHCP or is on the SEN register. 
3. Ensuring continuity of education, health and care, by avoiding out of area placements, transferring information to new boroughs about EHCPs, reducing the number of moves, introducing a cross-local authority protocol for home-to-school transport, and specialist training in schools. 
4. Improve communication and training in local authorities, with mandatory training for housing officers on neurodiversity. 
5. Improve housing quality and suitability standards, by including neurodivergence in the Homelessness Code of Guidance, improving the suitability of housing for neurodivergent children with neuroinclusive design standards, using Disabled Facilities Grants for modifications, conducting specialist neurodivergent-affirming housing needs assessments, generating greater flexibility for how families communicate with housing officers, and relaxing visitor rules. 
6. Focus on housing allocations, supply, and acquisitions, by ending the use of hotels and B&Bs for families, updating the suitability section of the Homelessness Code of Guidance, never mixing families and single adults in accommodation with shared facilities, introducing a minimum notice period for TA moves, build the housing that families need, and ending probationary tenancies. 
7. Provide financial relief with support for income maximisation and welfare applications, piloting and evaluating a Sensory Needs Fund at local authority level, and reducing the cost of transport for families in temporary accommodation. 

Quotes: 

Professor Katherine Brickell, Professor of Urban Studies, King’s College London

“Temporary accommodation may fulfil a legal duty to house families, but it is repeatedly failing to meet even the most basic conditions required for neurodivergent children. For many children, these placements are overcrowded, noisy, unstable and wholly unsuitable for their sensory, emotional and developmental needs. What is intended to be a short-term solution too often becomes a source of lasting trauma. 

Embedding children’s rights at the heart of housing decision-making would fundamentally shift the system’s focus. Rather than simply managing risk or meeting minimum statutory obligations, it would require decision-makers to actively prevent harm, prioritise children’s wellbeing, and consider the long-term impact of housing placements on a child’s development.

This approach would ensure that neurodivergent children are not treated as an afterthought, but are properly recognised and supported, with accommodation that is safe, appropriate and responsive to their needs. Only then can we begin to build a system that truly protects children, rather than one that too often fails them.”

Dr Rosalie Warnock, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, King’s College London

“Neurodivergent children remain largely invisible within homelessness policy, despite having needs that make them particularly vulnerable to instability, disruption and unsafe living conditions. Their experiences are too often overlooked in decision-making, with policies that fail to recognise how unsuitable accommodation can exacerbate sensory distress, anxiety and developmental challenges.

Housing, health and education systems are operating in silos, with little coordination or shared accountability. Families are left to navigate complex and disjointed systems on their own, while children bear the consequences through disrupted schooling, deteriorating mental health and unmet support needs.

What is urgently needed is a coordinated, child-centred approach that places children’s wellbeing and rights at the core of every housing decision. This means collaboration across housing, health and education services, shared responsibility for outcomes, and policies that respond to the real, lived experiences of neurodivergent children. Without this shift, fragmented decision-making will continue to fail the very children it should be protecting.”

Dame Siobhain McDonagh, MP for Mitcham and Morden, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Households in Temporary Accommodation

“We should all be appalled that children are being forced to endure conditions that are comparable to torture. No child should ever be subjected to such trauma, yet this is the reality for too many who are experiencing homelessness. These conditions are not only degrading and inhumane, but risk inflicting lifelong harm on children’s physical and mental health.

It is time to take firm control of this crisis and act with the urgency it demands. Preventing homelessness must be a priority, but where it does occur, we must ensure that no child is subjected to unsafe, unsuitable or damaging accommodation. This requires decisive leadership, proper investment, and a system that puts children’s welfare at its core.

I welcome the steps set out in the Government’s National Plan to Ending Homelessness, which signal a recognition of the scale and seriousness of the problem. However, significant gaps remain. As this report highlights, more work is needed to ensure that neurodivergent children are explicitly recognised, protected and supported when homelessness occurs, with appropriate accommodation and specialist services in place.”

Dr Laura Neilson, CEO of the Shared Health Foundation

“This report is yet another stark reminder that homeless children across the country are being systematically failed. For too long, the needs and rights of children have been sidelined, leaving many to grow up in conditions that are wholly unsuitable and deeply damaging to their wellbeing.

The horrific experiences endured by neurodivergent children in temporary accommodation are not inevitable, nor are they unavoidable. They are the predictable outcome of decades of political choices made by successive governments — choices that have prioritised short-term fixes over long-term solutions. 

A society should be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable, and on this measure, the system is falling profoundly short. Urgent action is needed to ensure that no child is forced to endure such conditions, and that neurodivergent children and their families are provided with safe, stable homes and the support they need to thrive.”

Simon Gale, CEO of Justlife

“Having supported people in temporary accommodation for as long as we have, it can take a lot to shock you. However, the findings of this report are a shocking and damning indictment of a housing system that has failed so many children and their families.

Life as a neurodivergent parent or child can present difficulties even for those in a settled environment, but having to navigate the challenges of unsafe and insecure temporary accommodation is a unique and often harrowing task for the neurodiverse community.

With the National Plan to End Homelessness increasing the focus on both prevention and tackling the worst forms of temporary accommodation, we hope the Government will accept this report’s recommendations, and do better by neurodiverse families.”

Dr Amanda Roestorf, CPsychol, Autistica Director of Research:  

“Inappropriate temporary accommodation has wide-ranging, predictable impacts that undermine neurodivergent children’s health, wellbeing and education, and destabilised family life. 

The fixes are practical and affordable: reduce sensory overload, prioritise suitable placements, and guarantee continuity of education, health and care when families are moved. 

The evidence and need is clear to end preventable harms by activating support from day one and creating genuinely neuroinclusive spaces.”

Temporary accommodation is increasingly becoming a children’s rights problem in the UK, with over 165,000 children across England experiencing homelessness. A report, published by Shared Health Foundation, exposes thirteen violations of the United Conventions on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) caused to children living in temporary accommodation. With the impending release of the homelessness and child poverty strategies, children trapped in the temporary accommodation crisis should be at the forefront of policymaker’s agendas. By publishing this report, Shared Health wants to see children made a priority in local and national approaches to managing and ending homelessness. 

Titled ‘Children Living in Temporary Accommodation: An Absolute Scandal’, the report draws upon the experiences of families across the country to outline the detrimental effects that living in temporary accommodation has on a child’s health and education. We find the rights violations to be caused by poor quality accommodation, the extensive and prolonged use of B&Bs, barriers to accessing healthcare and educational services, and discriminatory treatment. 

We are deeply concerned about the reliance on B&B and shared accommodation, particularly the lack of safeguarding protections for families placed into mixed accommodation with single adults and required to share bathroom and kitchen facilities. The exposure of children to substance abuse, violence, and sexual exploitation is a serious safeguarding concern. 

Additionally, we are alarmed by the increasing rates of child mortality where temporary accommodation has been listed as a contributing factor to a child’s death. Shared Health, in collaboration with the National Child Mortality Database, uncovered in January 2025 that seventy-four children have died since 2019 with temporary accommodation as a contributing factor. Fifty-eight of these children did not make it to their first birthday. 

Examples of good practice are highlighted throughout the report to emphasise the great work already happening across the country. Some of these include: dedicated play areas for young children in temporary accommodation where there is no space for play in their rooms; a school working collaboratively with the local authority to better support families experiencing or at risk of homelessness; and temporary accommodation providers stocking cots for families with babies, among others. These pockets of good practice are important reminders that the immediate effects of homelessness on families can be alleviated through simple measures.  

The recommendations put forward in the report are aimed at local and national government to end the violations of children’s rights under the UNCRC, as well as wider suggestions to tackle the human costs of the temporary accommodation crisis. Recommendations for both national and local government include: the adoption of a child’s rights based approach, reducing child mortality in temporary accommodation, better data collection, recognition of discrimination within the system, and support for homeless parents in or returning to employment. 

We are also calling on national and local government to implement the SAFE protocol that requires local authorities to notify schools and GPs when a child is placed into temporary accommodation, with guidance being provided for those services so they can best support homeless children. As co-secretariat to the All Party Parliamentary Group for Households in Temporary Accommodation, we are working with Parliamentarians to ensure this protocol is enshrined in the new Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. 

On a local level, the report suggests improvements in access to travel for homeless families, a recognition of the need for postnatal support in accommodation allocations for families with newborns, and an end to the mixing of families and single adults in shared accommodation. Nationally, Shared Health is seeking cross-departmental work from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local government, the Department for Education and the Department for Health and Social Care to better support homeless children. These recommendations can be implemented in the short term to improve the immediate situation while other longer-term solutions, such as housebuilding, can be put into motion.  

The consequence of welfare reforms and depleting levels of affordable and social housing is that more children will experience homelessness. As the report highlights, currently 50% of the homeless population are children and so it is vital that efforts to tackle all forms of homelessness take into account the needs of children. They are at an increased risk of experiencing homelessness again as adults, but this can be prevented. We are calling for policymakers to adopt these recommendations and put an end to the violations against children’s rights caused by unsuitable and inappropriate temporary accommodation. 

The Government’s strategy for ending homelessness starts with children. 

New data uncovers that 80 children have died in temporary accommodation in one year.

The APPG for Households in Temporary Accommodation can announce that out of the 3,605 child deaths in England, 80 have died while living in temporary accommodation.  These numbers were obtained from the National Child Mortality Database between 1st October 2023 and 30th September 2024, accounting for 3% of the total number of child deaths during this period.

The deaths reported account for all causes of mortality, yet the total number is significant as this is the first time this data has been collected in England. This has been due to the collaborative work from the APPG, its co-secretariats and the NCMD. In October 2023, the Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP) process was updated with questions about temporary accommodation. Whether temporary accommodation was a contributing factor to these deaths will be assessed through the CDOP process as usual.

Between 1st April 2019 to 31st March 2024, 74 children have died with temporary accommodation as a contributing factor to their vulnerability, ill-health, or death.  Of these 74 children, 58 were under the age of 1.

There are 164,040 homeless children in England living in temporary accommodation. Many are living in dangerous conditions with little support to help them navigate through our complex systems. Families are continuously placed out of area, far away from their school, GP and community. The educational attainment of homeless children plummets when they become homeless. The barriers to healthcare increases and children’s health and development suffer.

This guidance has been developed in collaboration with local authorities, schools, health professionals and families with lived experience of homelessness. We know that a little can go a long way in providing children and their families with a sense of hope during a very difficult time and that Health and Education services are well-placed to provide the stability that homeless families need to continue to thrive. Each local authority has its own process of housing allocations and is encouraged to utilise the systems that are already in place.

Please use the buttons below to download our guidance for Local Authorities, Schools and Primary Care.

Women and children are stuck in a ‘debt trap’. This research report evidences how rental, council tax, and other personal debts are shaping families’ housing journeys into and on from homelessness and temporary accommodation. Debt not only causes, lengthens, but also outlives family homelessness.

Shared Health Foundation began working with Oldham Council’s Housing Team in April 2020, during the initial lockdown period of the pandemic, with our unique ‘Focused Care’ model. This report outlines the benefits of this local authority partnership and celebrates the health outcomes of our families.

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