Youth homelessness is a growing problem in Hertfordshire. Over 2,800 young people approached their local council in the last 12 months because they were at crisis point and facing homelessness. At hyh we believe that prevention is key and take an holistic approach to our services. We offer intergenerational mediation to families at risk with wraparound wellbeing & counselling support. This means families are more likely to engage with our services and it ensures the greatest long term impact.

Family breakdown is the leading cause of youth homelessness. Our mediation service was developed as a direct response to this and it forms a core strand of our prevention work. We offer mediation to families with children aged 10-15 years for whom escalating conflict presents the risk of breakdown and subsequent homelessness or care proceedings for the young person. We adopt a multi agency approach working with our partners to identify families at risk of breakdown early to prevent this.