Academic articles co-authored by PolicyWise’s Roadmap team show how trust, consent, and improved information practices can help prevent youth homelessness
Why youth-centred information practices matter for prevention
When youth experiencing homelessness seek housing or support, information practices shape how clearly services communicate, how well youth choices are respected, and how effectively support can continue across systems. That is why youth-centred information practices matter. They help create stronger conditions for trust, clarity, and continuity of support for youth.
Three recent publications show how this work is advancing. Two are academic articles co-authored by PolicyWise’s Data Infrastructure Roadmap for Preventing Youth Homelessness team (the Roadmap). A third article from The Homeless Hub summarizes one of those articles for practical use. Together, they show how our team developed, shared, and applied knowledge about youth-centred information practices in homelessness prevention.
How co-creation strengthened the Roadmap
The first article, “Participatory Design in the Co-Creation of a Roadmap for Information for Youth Homelessness Prevention,” explains how inclusiveness, equality, and openness shaped the Roadmap through participatory design.
The Roadmap was built in collaboration with youth with lived experience, service providers, researchers, policy makers, and Indigenous communities. The article highlights how youth facilitators created safer spaces, supported stronger conversations about power dynamics, and shaped youth-centred recommendations. It shows how participatory design builds stronger practices by treating lived experience as leadership.
What the Roadmap research says about youth-centred information practices
The second article, “Towards youth-centred information practices to support youth facing homelessness: experiences and perspectives of youth with lived experience and community service providers,” examines day-to-day service experiences using five focus groups with 30 youth and eight interviews with 15 community service providers from several provinces. It explores how information is collected and used when youth access homelessness services and what can strengthen those experiences.
Findings highlight areas where stronger practices matter, such as:
- Supporting safety during information collection
- Making practices more youth-centred
- Strengthening informed consent, and
- Reconsidering long-term data use
In the article, the team emphasize that building relationships between youth and service providers is central, showing information practices are part of care, trust, and continuity, and not just an administrative task.
Taken together, the article shows that youth-centred information practices can support better communication, greater clarity about consent, more respect for identity, and more consistent support across a youth’s journey. This practical evidence supports the Roadmap team’s broader argument that ethical and responsive information practices are key to effective prevention efforts.
The Homeless Hub brings the Roadmap findings into practice
The Homeless Hub also published “Towards Youth-Centred Data Practices for Ending Youth Homelessness,” a blog post based on the Roadmap team’s youth-centred information practices academic article. The post presents the research for a broader audience and connects the findings more directly to practice.
This post highlights practical ways to strengthen services, including building trust before asking in-depth questions, clarifying and making consent more accessible, respecting how youth identify themselves, streamlining information collection, and limiting data retention when no longer needed. It distinguishes between what frontline workers can do in practice and what organizations can strengthen in their systems and procedures.
This blog post gives the academic work a wider reach. The academic article offers evidence, while the Homeless Hub translates it into clear guidance for organizations and practitioners. Together, they reinforce the value of youth-centred information practices as something that can be developed, improved, and applied in real service settings.
Why these publications matter together
These three publications work together in different ways:
- The first explains how the Roadmap was co-created;
- The second shares youth and provider perspectives on information collection and use;
- The third makes findings more accessible and practice focused.
Through this work the Roadmap team is helping shape academic and practice conversations on youth homelessness prevention.
Read the publications
To learn more, visit the Data Infrastructure Roadmap for Preventing Youth Homelessness project page. The Academic Resources section includes both articles, and the Related Resources feature includes The Homeless Hub blog post.
Project sponsors
The project was funded by Making the Shift: Youth Homelessness Social Innovation Lab.
Making the Shift was funded by the Government of Canada through the Networks of Centres of Excellence program. The opinions and interpretations in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Government of Canada.
