2. Understanding ‘self-reliance’ in the context of homelessness
As noted above, the SAAP V Multilateral Agreement describes self-reliance for homelessness service users as a concept with many facets, including access to long-term independent accommodation, restored or improved family links, greater social inclusion, improved financial security and a degree of self-sufficiency (Commonwealth of Australia, 2005). This understanding is grounded in previous research for SAAP conceptualising and testing measures of client outcomes and self-reliance (Browton, 2001; Baulderstone and Talbot, 2004; Kunnen and Martin, 2004; Kunnen, Lee and Martin, 2004).
Kunnen and Martin carried out a series of in-depth interviews with clients of SAAP services aimed at identifying the key elements of self-reliance for them. They concluded that a working definition of self-reliance could be expressed as ‘getting back on one’s feet’, in terms of achieving individual goals, changing life direction and restoring it to something akin to that previously experienced. Noting that people’s routes to re-establishing their lives were likely to vary considerably, depending on their particular circumstances, the researchers described self-reliance as an individually-determined pathway that comprises a number of different dimensions and components.
These included affect – or subjective emotional experience – expressed in terms of goals, confidence, beliefs, acceptance of assistance and resilience; a sense of control and security, involving personal safety and stability; knowledge, in terms of life skills, problem-solving ability, and access to resources and supports; behaviour, in areas of assuming responsibility, coping and substance use; status, including resolution of structural barriers to independence, access to and adequacy of services and supports; connectedness and capacity, in terms of dealing with relationship issues; and stability, in terms of connecting with support and wider social networks. They also emphasised that pathways to recovery were often likely to be discontinuous and context-driven, and that clients needed to be able to define for themselves the aspects of self-reliance that were relevant for them.
While Kunnen and Martin recommended against the use of a quantitative survey instrument as a tool for assessing self-reliance, on the grounds that this was unlikely to be able to capture the varying experiences of clients and the non-linear nature of much progress towards self-reliance, this earlier work on understanding of what self-reliance might mean for homeless people was nevertheless extremely important in informing the methodological design of this study. However, finding a way to gauge the impact that SAAP services might have on clients’ capacity to get back on their feet still brought significant conceptual and practical challenges.
The rest of this section discusses these challenges and how the study has attempted to meet them.
2.1 Limitations of an individualist perspective on homelessness
The first difficulty is that the concept of self-reliance derives primarily from a psychological perspective which tends to see it a personal attribute of the individual (Lane, 2001; Marušic et al., 1995). Some of the difficulties people face in trying to escape homelessness are clearly connected with individual psychopathology or behaviour, yet to focus on individual characteristics risks neglecting the wider socioeconomic and political factors that underpin homelessness in a modern wealthy economy. Both the underlying causes of homelessness and the constraints on people’s ability to escape it are often external and material, related to the lack of affordable housing options, to poverty or unemployment, and to social inequalities, rather than to personal inadequacies (AHNRC, 2001; Wilkinson, 2005). It would also be inappropriate to attribute the major precursors of homelessness such as domestic violence, family breakdown or child abuse to personal shortcomings of homeless people themselves. Thus any attempt to measure self-reliance on the part of people using homelessness services has to take account not only of personal attributes or behaviour, but also both the material constraints on the individual and the limits to what services are capable of providing, given that most cannot offer long-term, secure housing or jobs.2.2 Client diversity
Secondly, the literature exploring the concept of self-reliance in the context of homelessness is clear in rejecting a one-size-fits-all approach (Kunnen and Martin, 2004). Participants in our consultation groups also pointed out that moving towards self-reliance is a journey that clients start at quite different points and within widely varying constraints. For some, simply engaging in dialogue with service staff about their difficulties is an achievement in itself, whereas for others the focus of change may be on learning practical skills of household management or sustaining a tenancy. Research on women’s transitions out of homelessness has also identified factors that are particularly important for women, but which are not always recognised when homeless people are considered as a homogeneous population (Adkins et al., 2003). An instrument to measure change thus needs the breadth and flexibility to pick up on this wide range of possible achievements.
2.3 Self-reliance and independence
A further conceptual difficulty is that self-reliance is often conflated with the idea of independence – which in social policy terms is commonly interpreted to mean being free of reliance on welfare or other public services. There is a commonsense notion about welfare services that the ideal is to wean people off needing them. In this context, however, the fact that a client no longer uses a SAAP service may not in itself be a good measure of self-reliance, especially if they have not been able to access alternative resources. Moreover, there are very few people, regardless of their circumstances, that live lives fully independent of others (Harré, 1979). Nor is such independence necessarily a desirable social goal (Cox, 1995; Smith, 2001; Johnson, Headey and Jensen, 2005). The dimensions of self-reliance identified for SAAP clients involve both connectedness and relationships with other people and knowledge about and access to appropriate services and other forms of support.
2.4 Self-reliance and resilience
Another conceptual issue concerns the relationship with resilience – again a term often linked with self-reliance (Wagnild and Young; 1993; Chao, 2000; Bartley, 2006). While resilience might be understood as the ability to cope in times of crisis (Browton, 2001), it too is often linked to a sense of connectedness (Fuller, McGraw and Goodyear, 2002). However, for an individual who is homeless, both resilience and self-reliance can also be features of isolation and alienation. These qualities may actually have developed in response to limited support from others, rather than as a capacity gained by establishing connections with others. This can particularly be the case among young homeless people, who often survive by becoming ‘street smart’ or over-reliant on their own resources to such an extent as to be anomic and isolating (Rew et al., 2001). Again this needs to be borne in mind when considering indicators to express self-reliance.2.5 Measuring small changes
A further problem – partly conceptual and partly methodological – lies in the capacity of different kinds of research instruments to measure change in individuals where levels of change may only be slight. Because of the multiple and complex difficulties facing homeless people, what may appear to be very small changes can, for some, still be highly significant (Browton, 2000; Kunnen and Martin, 2004). As the agencies we consulted pointed out, just being able to access a community service, for example, could indicate a significant increase in personal confidence or an associated decrease in social anxiety, even though it might not on the surface appear to be contributing to increased self-reliance in a larger sense.
For this reason some of the agencies taking part in the consultations (and others involved in the study) argued that a thorough understanding of the relationship between SAAP services and self-reliance requires a range of methods well beyond those available to us in this particular study. In particular, it was argued that we need longitudinal methods that incorporate the perspectives of a range of stakeholders (including clients, service providers and family members) and use in-depth or scaled measures of achievement against individual goals. This is similar to what was proposed by Kunnen and Martin (2004) in their earlier work on self-reliance. However, such a methodology was beyond the scope of the present project and the resources available. For this study, designing a one-off, cross-sectional survey needed to be able identify elements of change that service users themselves could appreciate and recognise as relevant to their circumstances and personal histories. We therefore determined that, wherever possible, the clients themselves should complete the survey questionnaire, as opposed to the SAAP service providers who worked with them. Thus the question of small changes became one of self-perception on the part of service users themselves. It was up to them to consider whether a change in a particular domain had been significant or not.
2.6 Establishing causal links between client change and service use
Another difficulty arises in trying to establish direct causal links between any detected changes in client behaviour, situation or perception and the services they have received through SAAP. While the survey attempts to focus on the relationship with recent service support, many other factors may contribute to the development of self-reliance in any one individual. These may include personal attributes (such as motivation), family or friendship networks, broader socio-cultural factors and other service use. The survey collects data on demographic and social circumstances, and on service use, but, as is suggested above, any increase in self-reliance is likely to be multifactorial, with influences that are hard to disentangle. This poses a particular problem in relation to homelessness services, since SAAP funding represents only part of the financial resources of many of them, especially the larger, multi-service agencies. Nevertheless, our study makes a concerted attempt to identify the interacting factors promoting (or militating against) self-reliance and it is careful to identify as far as possible the particular role of SAAP services.
2.7 Which clients might be expected to develop self-reliance?
One last question that arose in the design of the study was whom to include in the survey sample. Given the need to link change in self-reliance with SAAP service provision, after how long a period of engagement with a service might we realistically expect to observe change in an individual client? Most SAAP support periods, as recorded in administrative data, are very short – often less than one week – even though many clients return for further assistance (AIHW, 2006b). Does it really make sense to expect a client to demonstrate change in a wide range of life domains simply through accessing crisis accommodation for a few nights? On the other hand, if the focus is only on longer-term recipients of support, does the study risk missing out on the experiences of the majority?
This was one of the key questions put to the consultative bodies and there were many different views. After much deliberation it was decided to include clients who were known to a SAAP service for at least four weeks, either continuously or intermittently, and had received case-management support. This eligibility threshold was seen to have the potential to include the largest proportion of clients who might be expected to perceive significant changes in self-reliance. However, it needs to be recognised that this does exclude many clients of short-term crisis accommodation, unless they are regular users of the same service. In practice this decision also turned out to be one of the factors that limited the responses from services, as many did not see sufficient clients meeting this criterion during the prescribed data collection period. This is discussed further below in the section on methodology.