4 Labour Markets and Employment opportunities

Focus Ireland is requesting tenders to undertake an evaluation of the Women’s Outlook Programme in Dublin. The programme’s goals are to prevent homelessness and to prevent recidivism for women who have come into contact with the criminal justice system. The service developed from the recognition of a need for step-down, community-based services specifically for women assessed as low risk for reoffending and as low risk to society. This collaborative service provides accommodation and combined support of both on-site Case Managers, and IPS/Probation Service supports. This evaluation will have a particular emphasis on family-centred approaches to rehabilitation and reintegration. It will examine family, and social reintegration both before, during and after entry to the programme and explore what familial supports and challenges exist and what can be improved upon. Notably, the evaluation will inform the next iteration of the Women’s Outlook Programme.

This invitation to tender is seeking a suitably qualified independent evaluator to support Women’s Aid in reviewing the five key strands of the Too Into You Project (noted below), assess their impact, and consider the potential for this work to form part of Women’s Aid’s strategic output beyond the end of 2024. It is intended that the independent evaluator of the project will engage with the project over 12 months from mid- 2023, until mid-2024, when a report should be presented, including evidence based and specific recommendations regarding the potential continuation (including potential for expansion and/or diversification) of the Too Into You project.   Too Into You (http://www.toointoyou.ie) is a project by Women’s Aid which began in 2011 due to an increase in young women contacting the Women’s Aid 24Hr National Freephone Helpline and using our One to One services. We are also frequently invited to deliver training or awareness talks to...

The overarching aim of this research is to reach a better understanding of those people who are homeless, at imminent risk of homelessness or who face housing insecurity but do not appear in Scotland’s official figures.   This includes people who do not approach their local authority for help; people who approach their local authority but do not get a response that meets their needs; those who find alternative solutions; or those who do not see themselves as homeless.   An improved understanding of the different routes into and out of homelessness will help us address gaps in provision and make Scotland’s homelessness system more responsive to people’s needs.

Overall, this work will help the UKRI IUK Urban Systems team identify where its future strategy may go and where it may be able to use its resources to target certain challenges. It will also allow places to identify where they can have the maximum impact in resolving current and future challenges.   The first part of this project is producing a report summarising the work which has already been done looking at the future of our towns and cities and identifying current trends as a result of this synthesis. This streamlined report will identify the key themes and trends. UKRI IUK then expect these trends to be further evaluated within the report, with a more place-specific outlook. This means a taxonomy/classification mechanism of towns and cities being adopted, if a suitable categorisation mechanism already exists, or created. Thereby, each classification will have its key focal themes/trends specified. For the themes and trends, the potential resultant innovation...