Fulfilling Lives Newcastle and Gateshead

Fulfilling Lives: Supporting People with Complex Needs

Fulfilling Lives Newcastle and Gateshead
  1. Funding
  2. Strategic investments in England
  3. Fulfilling Lives: Supporting People with Complex Needs

The Fulfilling Lives programme is a £112 million investment over 8 years supporting people who are experiencing multiple and complex needs. The programme funds local partnerships in 12 areas across England to test new ways of ensuring individuals receive joined up and person centred services which work for them.

Aims & approach

What is Fulfilling Lives doing?

Fulfilling Lives aims to improve the support available for people with multiple and complex needs, so that individuals are better able to manage their lives.

Multiple and complex needs is defined in this programme as people who experience two or more of homelessness, a record of current or historical offending, substance misuse, and mental ill health.

By developing effective networks and services, people with multiple needs can be supported to improve their lives, which in turn will result in healthier and more fulfilled individuals, more effective communities and a reduced cost to public services.

Partnerships will work with beneficiaries, service providers and commissioners, and local authorities to design, test and implement different approaches which:

  • Provide learning which can be used to create system change

  • Address the combination of factors that can affect the person, in a way that is simple and straightforward for individuals to navigate, with a single access point

  • Assume that people can improve their own circumstances and life chances with the right support

  • Engage people with first-hand experience of multiple needs in the design and delivery of services

  • Provide better co-ordination between those delivering services (both statutory and voluntary sector) and those commissioning services.

People in the lead

To ensure that this programme meets the needs of the people it is designed for, we have established a National Expert Citizens Group to bring together people with first-hand experience of these issues.

These expert citizens will use their knowledge to improve the design and delivery of the services that are available to them, collaborating with local leadership and decision makers across the partnerships to create solutions that work for them.

Learning

We’re using a Common Data Framework (CDF) to measure and compare the outputs from each project, across the partnerships.

Project participants are asked to use a Homelessness Outcomes Star tool to self-assess themselves on ten different issues including offending, managing money and physical health. A key worker will also assess issues such as alcohol/drug use, impulse control, intentional self-harm, risk (to and from others) and social effectiveness.

These are measured at various sampling points and are compared to previous data to monitor the participant’s progress and how effective each project is at supporting individuals’ needs.

Evaluation

This programme is intended to achieve a lasting impact that can influence the way that services are commissioned and how networks operate in the future.

To do this, we have commissioned CFE Research and the University of Sheffield to carry out evaluations that are independent from The National Lottery Community Fund and the Fulfilling Lives partnerships. These are available to read on the Multiple and Complex Needs Evaluation website.

Local evaluations will also been commissioned by each of the 12 partnerships throughout the course of the programme, and a full evaluation will be published when the programme is completed in 2022.

The evaluations aim to:

  • Explore how projects are delivered, understand problems faced and to help identify solutions and lessons to learn
  • Track and assess the achievements of the programme to date; and to estimate the extent to which these can be attributed to the programme and the interventions delivered
  • Calculate the costs of the projects and the value of benefits to the exchequer and wider society
  • Identify what interventions and approaches work well, for which people and in what circumstances
  • Assess the extent to which The National Lottery Community Fund’s principles are incorporated into project design and delivery and to work out the degree to which these principles influence success.

Our responses to Government

Partnerships

Our programme partners

Between 2014 and 2022, the 12 Fulfilling Lives partnerships will design, test and deliver tailored programmes of support which respond to the local context, environment and needs of people with multiple and complex needs.

We also work with the Making Every Adult Matter coalition to provide specialist support to partners.

Each partnership has different system change priorities but are working towards the same three outcomes:

  1. People with multiple needs manage their lives better through access to person centred and co-ordinated services.
  2. Services are tailored and better connected, with service users to fully take part in effective service design and delivery.
  3. Shared learning and the improved measurement of outcomes will demonstrate the impact of service models to key stakeholders and influence future programme design by local services.
Resources

Fixing the hamster wheel of homelessness (PDF 628 KB)
This case study from Opportunity Nottingham, one of the partnerships funded through this programme, explores what we mean by the term ‘systems change’. It documents the approach that the partnership has taken, the challenges they have faced to date and shares key learning on what has worked and what hasn’t for beneficiaries in Nottingham.

The Multiple and Complex Needs Evaluation website
As well as producing independent evaluations of the partnerships’ progress, the Multiple and Complex Needs Evaluation team have collated a number of reports case studies and stories which focus on key themes and topics within the programme.

These illustrate how partnerships have established approaches, changed and developed their practice as opportunities have arisen and overcome challenges.