Personal Passport

The Personal Passport is a trauma-informed, co-produced info-sharing tool designed to enhance the experience of those navigating the homelessness system. It is part of a pilot project by the Camden Homelessness System Partnership.

The Personal Passport was developed through Camden’s Homelessness System Partnership, established by Camden Council in 2022. This partnership united individuals experiencing homelessness and service providers across various sectors, including the NHS, voluntary and community organisations, and local authorities.

A smaller group of people with lived and learnt expertise of homelessness formed a co-production group within this partnership. Over the course of a year, they collaborated to design and refine the Personal Passport based on their collective insights and experiences.

What is it?

The concept of the Personal Passport came from people with firsthand experience in the homelessness system. We kept hearing that:

• Retelling personal stories to multiple services can be distressing, particularly during crises.
• People want to speak for themselves, seeking greater choice and control over their support. They prefer to be understood as people rather than through the lens of service assumptions and judgments.

As expressed by our co-producers, the Personal Passport aims to:

• “Help workers understand you as a person, not just about your circumstances… to help reduce having to explain your issues over and over.”
• “Contain information that can be used to help solve problems and personal situations without having to repeat the same story many times, which can be upsetting or just annoying.”

This tool also enables Camden’s system to implement trauma-informed practices.

The Personal Passport is available as a downloadable, interactive PDF, which you can protect (see below for guidance on how to do this).

• Download the longer version of the Personal Passport here.
• Download the shorter version of the Personal Passport here. (This version was created in response to feedback from users who tested the tool.)

How do I start using it?

To begin using the Personal Passport, please contact Bex Oldham, Co-Production Lead, at boldham@shp.org.uk to arrange a short training session.

For initial guidance on using the Personal Passport, including password protection, click here.

Testing and evaluating the Personal Passport

Since March 2024, we have been introducing and testing the Personal Passport with various groups, including:

• Women’s Refuge
• Women’s Outreach Service
• Two adult pathway hostels

What’s going well? What are we learning?

The Camden Homelessness Co-Production Team, composed of individuals with lived experiences of homelessness, has been conducting peer research to gather feedback on the use of the Personal Passport.

You can read the complete evaluation here (to be completed in November).

Key insights from users

The Personal Passport has been identified as essential because:

• “Over time, what I share loses its power.”
• “In the PURF (Pathway Universal Referral Form), it’s written how they want you to see it… I need to say it in my own words, not how they want it worded.”
• “It goes round and round in circles, and you really don’t have a voice because you’re… a minute speck, insignificant. And being disabled makes it even worse.”

Some challenges noted include:

• “What’s the point? Who is going to care about what I’ve written?”
• “Some questions like ‘how I feel’ and ‘who I am’… right now, I don’t know how I am… that’s why it’s hard for me.”
• “She kept asking, is this the right answer? Is this what you want me to say?”

While we aim for the Personal Passport to facilitate access to support for those experiencing homelessness, we recognise that no single tool can address all challenges. We hope the system is encouraged to rethink its operational methods, prompting necessary changes to improve support delivery.

Watch the Co-Production Team reflect on what must change for the Personal Passport to be used effectively.

Contact us

Please reach out if you want to use the Personal Passport or provide feedback! Contact Bex Oldham, Co-Production Lead at the Single Homeless Project:

• Email: boldham@shp.org.uk
• Phone: 07791 804406