From one school six years ago, Llamau now runs the project in 12 schools across south Wales and the valleys.
With more than half of homeless adults having experienced homelessness before turning 21, Yvonne Connolly, operational director at Llamau, said projects such as Upstream could have a generational impact.
She said: “What we really want to do is help families not get to the point where relationships break down beyond repair.”
As well as being the first to introduce the project in the UK, the charity also helped other organisations establish Upstream across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and leads the UK steering group which won a Homelessness Excellence Award earlier this year, external.
In 2025 the UK government included Upstream England pilot projects in its national plan to end homelessness, external.
Llamau warned, despite being at the forefront, Wales could fall behind the rest of the UK as, without support, expanding outside south Wales and the valleys will be a long, slow process.
“What the danger here is that without that long-term funding commitment Wales could get left behind, despite Wales creating this,” said Yvonne.
The charity also pointed out that preventing homelessness saves money.
Supporting young people early is far more cost-effective than responding to crises later, while also improving long-term outcomes.
Mediation can prevent family breakdown, a leading cause of youth homelessness, saving more than £27,000 per person in specialist accommodation costs.
The Welsh government said it was providing more than £3.7m this year through the youth support grant “to identify and support young people at risk of homelessness at the earliest possible stage”.
It also said it was investing £3.5m in “innovative youth homelessness projects” including Housing First for Youth, external to help vulnerable young people “avoid or move on from homelessness”.