Upstream Scotland: Homelessness Prevention in Scotland

Upstream operates inside secondary schools using a universal screening survey completed by every pupil, not just pupils who have already been flagged as struggling. That matters, because risk of homelessness often has nothing to do with attendance or behaviour. Many young people at real risk show no outward signs that anything is wrong.

The survey gives young people a safe, non-stigmatising way to share what’s actually going on at home, whether that’s family stress, housing worries or a relationship breakdown, without having to ask for help directly or single themselves out. When a young person is identified as at risk, a dedicated Upstream worker provides tailored support: mentoring, family mediation, wellbeing support, and conflict resolution, delivered in partnership with local services.

The model is built on evidence: it’s adapted from the Geelong Project in Australia, where a school-based approach to identifying risk early produced a 40% reduction in youth homelessness in the local area.

Upstream Scotland has been independently evaluated by Heriot-Watt University’s I-SPHERE institute, one of the UK’s leading housing and homelessness research centres. The interim evaluation, published in February 2025, found:

• Around one in ten young people surveyed across the six pilot schools in Edinburgh, West Lothian and Perth and Kinross were at high or immediate risk of youth homelessness. These figures closely match findings from the pilots in Wales and England.
• Nearly three quarters of those at high or immediate risk showed no significant signs of disengagement from school – meaning they wouldn’t have been identified through traditional measures like attendance or behaviour.
• Young people at any level of homelessness risk showed lower resilience and wellbeing than their peers, reinforcing the case for early, relationship-centred intervention.

The most common driver of youth homelessness is family and relationship breakdown. Upstream reaches young people at exactly the point where those relationships can still be strengthened. Before things reach crisis point.

Across the UK, the wider Upstream UK programme has grown from a single school in Wales to 37 schools in just over four years. The results have been consistent: 98% of young people supported through Upstream have remained safely at home, and 85% of families have achieved personal wellbeing goals, including improved communication, reduced conflict, and stronger relationships.

The Upstream Scotland pilot has been running across six schools in Edinburgh, West Lothian, and Perth and Kinross, with a final evaluation report examining outcomes for young people and wider homelessness trends across the pilot schools. 

From 2026, there are plans to expand the programme to a total of eight schools, thanks to a £1m funding award from the Julia Rausing Trust. This new funding will allow Rock Trust to sustain that frontline delivery beyond the pilot, while a new Implementation Manager works with education leaders across Scotland to build a national toolkit – ultimately with the ambition of rolling the model out to schools nationwide.

Young people are significantly overrepresented in Scotland’s homelessness statistics. Once a young person becomes homeless, the path back to stability is harder, slower, and more costly, both for the young person and for the systems supporting them. 

Upstream is part of Rock Trust’s wider commitment to prevention: reaching young people early, equipping schools and communities to spot risk before it escalates, and intervening while relationships and options are still open. It sits alongside our housing and employability services as part of a model built around stopping homelessness before it starts, not just responding once it has.