Fulfilling Lives South East Partnership, which operated in Brighton & Hove, Eastbourne and Hastings, started in 2014 and was funded until July 2022 by the National Lottery Community Fund.

The Project was one of 12 projects across England funded to (i) provide intensive support for people experiencing multiple disadvantage (ii) involve people with lived experience of multiple disadvantage at all levels (iii) challenge and change systems that negatively affect people facing multiple disadvantage.

We are using the learning from the programme to (i) inform providers, policymakers, and commissioners (ii) evidence the need for systems and services that are more welcoming, responsive, flexible and coordinated for those with the most complex needs (iii) promote ways of achieving this.

Multiple and complex needs (MCN) are persistent, problematic, and interrelated health and social care needs which impact an individual’s life and their ability to function in society.

They are likely to include repeat street homelessness, mental, psychological and physical health problems, drug and/or alcohol dependency, and offending behaviour. People with MCN are more likely to experience violence and abuse, including domestic violence, live in poverty and have experienced trauma in childhood and throughout their lives.

They experience ineffective contact with services, partly since most public services are designed to deal with one problem at a time, supporting people with single, severe conditions. Lacking effective support from services, people easily end up in a downward spiral of mental ill health, homelessness, drug and alcohol problems and crime.

For further reading see Hard Edges: Mapping Severe and Multiple Disadvantage in England, Lankelly Chase, 2015