How we activate the SWEP
Our housing team is responsible for activating the protocol.
The team adopt a common-sense approach and use resources including weather forecasts http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/forecast/322/?area=Lichfield and weather health alerts issued by UKHSA in partnership with the Met Office.
The team check the weather conditions before 12noon every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to determine whether to activate the protocol, based on current and predicted weather conditions.
With regards to cold, the team will activate the SWEP when the lowest temperature (including predicted) drops to 0 degrees on any one day.
During the working week the team will look two days ahead when considering whether to active the SWEP, whereas on a Friday the team will consider the full weekend (including any bank holidays) as early in the day as possible, so that partners and any known rough sleepers can be contacted with enough working hours’ notice.
If the forecast is predicted to dip during the weekend, the team and partners will contact all known rough sleepers to offer emergency accommodation by the Friday, and then any adhoc reports of rough sleepers will be dealt with out of hours on a presentation basis.