Exploring Homeless People's Use of Outreach Services: Applying a Social Psychological Perspective |
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Authors: | Julie Christian David Clapham Dominic Abrams |
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Affiliation: | 1. College of Life &2. Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham , Birmingham, UK;3. City &4. Regional Planning, Cardiff University , Cardiff, Wales, UK;5. Centre for the Study of Group Processes, Department of Psychology , University of Kent at Canterbury , UK |
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Abstract: | A number of critiques have been published drawing attention to the gaps in research methods applied to issues surrounding homelessness and service utilisation in Britain. This paper discusses the use of social identity, a theory drawn from the field of applied social psychology, and synthesises it with the pathways model, thereby providing a framework to further explore service utilisation. The synthesised framework was used to predict the uptake of outreach services in a prospective study of 121 homeless people in a major UK city. In general, homeless people's use of intervention services was affected by the extent to which they identified with the support services themselves. The study demonstrates the central role of social identity in understanding service utilisation patterns, and shows the importance of applying fresh techniques to fine-tune our understanding of uptake in the long term. |
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Keywords: | Homelessness social identity pathways service use predictive modelling |
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