This section considers the fourteen stages of the resettlement process and provides a checklist for carrying out a quality audit of each of them.
Each section lists the aims of that particular stage of the process and the tasks necessary to achieve them.
The Quality audit section provides a series of questions aimed at establishing whether those aims have been met.
Here we repeat a section taken from Mike Seal's "Resettling Homeless People", Russell House Publishing 2005. It explores an aspect of resettlement work that is the need for change and levels of change.`
The central tenet of resettlement work is that it is possible to intervene usefully in situations where homelessness is the result of something more than difficulties in accessing accommodation.
Making the right decisions about how and where to live is fundamental to an individuals chance of succeeding in their aims (Dane 1998) A repeated cycle of accommodation breakdown can often be the result of a poor evaluation of options and unrealistic expectations given the choices. The development of decision making skills can lead to lasting solutions that are arrived at by the individuals themselves (Millner and Rollnick 1991)
The way we feel about ourselves, other people and the place that we live, plays a large part in our ability to sustain any given lifestyle. (Rowe 1999) Negative emotions, whether the result of a bad experience in our past, or of coping with the present, can lead to people repeatedly giving up their attempts to change accommodation at a similar point, even if they made an appropriate decision. Moving home is considered to be in the top 20 stressful events (Holmes and Rahe 1967) Enabling people to be aware of and cope with their feelings can take away the blockage and help them to proceed.
Changing accommodation often requires the adaptation of old skills and the need to learn new ones. Competence or adequate support in these things is essential for someone coping in their new environment. There are also practical changes that need to occur., often external to the individual such as the acquisition of furniture, the connection of amenities, etc.
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