Prevention Opportunities Mapping and Planning Toolkit (PrOMPT)

As part of the new rough sleeping strategy, Communities and Local Government (CLG) has committed to produce toolkits that will help local authorities meet the aims of the strategy. The CLG has commissioned Homeless Link to develop one of these, a Prevention Opportunities Mapping and Planning Toolkit (PrOMPT).

What is PrOMPT?

Communities and Local Government commissioned PrOMPT under its commitment to support the development of tools to assist local authorities, their partners, and the communities they serve, to better plan and commission services to identify opportunities to prevent rough sleeping. PrOMPT is one of a number of initiatives that make up Communities and Local Government’s preventing rough sleeping toolkit.
 
PrOMPT guides local authorities and their partners through four key stages:
  • Partnership building – including securing the involvement of clients locally
  • Audit and analysis – mapping routes into rough sleeping, identifying opportunities for early intervention and rapid preventative action, and identifying gaps in local services and safety nets
  • Action planning – identifying key steps to take to remodel services, commission new services and ensure prevention
  • Review - monitoring progress and updating the audit and analysis

It involves people who have direct experience of sleeping rough as experts in identifying pathways into rough sleeping and the points in the journey where more effective interventions would have helped. It is a means to learn from the views and experiences of rough sleepers in your area in order to provide interventions that meet their needs. It should be used alongside other data, such as an audit of services, to produce a complete picture of need in your area. 

The toolkit

This toolkit provides everything needed by a local authority and its partners to implement the process. It includes the following resources:
 * You must contact us to use the PrOMPT IT audit and analysis tool. Details about this tool are available in the R1 Implementation guidance. An online training version of the PrOMPT IT audit and anlysis tool is also available.
 
Two staff at management level, one from the local authority and one from the voluntary sector, must take overall responsibility for the implementation of PrOMPT. These people are known as lead contacts.

Who should use this toolkit? 

Implementing PrOMPT can be a useful way of beginning dialogue with rough sleepers; however it can also be used where a relationship is already in place to enhance the services provided in an area. Where relationships are good, clients should be encouraged to be involved in the planning and carrying out of the audit.