‘Forearmed is forewarned’ William tells students learning life skills

The Prince of Wales stressed the importance of everyday knowledge when he spoke to students about essential life skills they learned in housing workshops.

William sat at an outdoor camp and listened to the teenagers’ experiences of being taught about tenancy rights and other issues, as he hosted an international delegation learning about his Homewards project to help eradicate homelessness.

The future king told the students from the Bourne Academy in Bournemouth the sessions held by Shelter, a Homewards partner organisation, were not meant to “scare” them.

He went on to say: “So then, you’ve got a lot on anyway, there’s a lot of things to think about and worry about, it’s not to add more burden to your plate, but hopefully it’s to start thinking about it before it becomes an issue.

“That expression ‘forearmed is forewarned’ or whatever they say – that’s the kind of idea here.”

When he asked “Does it give you a bit of confidence?” he got a positive response of “yes” from around the campsite close to the academy.

Student Scarlett Gobb, 18, said after meeting William: “Normally, schools are really academic based and I think having something like this, it’s so good because there’s so much more to the world than being smart.

“And I feel like (being) academic is one thing, but I feel like having more common sense and knowing more about the real world is so much more important than any other knowledge that you can get.”

In 2023, William launched his Homewards project, which aims to develop a blueprint for eradicating homelessness in all its forms, “making it rare, brief and unrepeated”.

Six Homewards locations were chosen – Newport, Lambeth, Belfast, Aberdeen, Sheffield, and three neighbouring Dorset towns, Poole, Bournemouth and Christchurch – with the aim of delivering bespoke solutions to the homelessness issues in each area.

The campaign is a major long-term focus for William, who has said previously how visiting shelters with his late mother Diana, Princess of Wales when he was a child left a deep and lasting impression and inspired his work.

During his visit the prince also met the Homewards funded 14-16 curriculum team, designing a bespoke curriculum for this age group at risk of exclusion or falling into the not in education, employment or training (Neet) category.

The project is a collaboration between the academy, Bournemouth and Poole College, and BCP (Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole) Council, using elements such as vocational skills, confidence‑building and pastoral support to ensure students stay in education and reduce the risk of homelessness.

And the prince sat down with a group homelessness charities and other organisations at different stages in implementing Upstream, an early‑intervention survey that helps identify pupils at risk of homelessness, being introduced at Bourne Academy by Centrepoint.

Before leaving the academy, William posed for selfies with residents and chatted to toddlers from a local nursery.

William spent the day in Bournemouth and earlier visited the pier where the prince and representatives from Australia, Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands and Finland, factfinding about the work of Homewards in Bournemouth, met leaders of local services.

They then joined a session of the newly formed BCP Youth Homelessness Board to learn how different sectors are working together to prevent young people reaching crisis points.