Throughout Europe, there is on ongoing and differentiated process of professionalization of the homeless sector, as well as an increasingly evidence-based approach to service delivery, partly driven by EU-level policy developments. There is a growing emphasis on ‘housing-led’ solutions, which involve promoting sustainable exits from homelessness into permanent housing as rapidly as possible. The Housing First service model for tackling long-term homelessness amongst people with complex support needs has been identified as an evidence-based innovation. In the above context, a shift is currently taking place in the EU, whereby homeless services increasingly focus on “ending” rather than “managing” homelessness. There is a need for field workers to engage in continual training in order to help their clients efficiently. According to the experience of the Ways out of homelessness in Central Europe Erasmus+ strategic partnership, as well as own national data collection in Hungary, there is almost nothing in form of training offered to those working with homeless people moving into independent housing. Support workers learn as they go, often from their own mistakes – which also means that they might gather negative memories and be less enthusiastic to work with homeless people in real housing. Peer-support work or hiring experts with lived experience has been growing in the social sector, mostly in the area of substance abuse and less so in the field of homelessness. However, people who have experienced homelessness can offer support in a unique way as they have knowledge, skills and abilities that cannot be taught in courses. Still, to be able to work efficiently, as well as for their own protection, they need to acquire new knowledge, skills and abilities on how to support people. The partnerships thus gathers organizations who have vast experience not only in helping homeless people sustain housing once exiting homelessness, but also in training various groups of support workers.The TrainHouse project aims to share experience and good practice in the field of housing support. Through five joint staff training events the partners will introduce each other to the work they carry out in the five cities of the partnership: Barcelona (Spain), Brno (Czech Republic), Budapest (Hungary), Glasgow and London (United Kingdom). Participants (about 45 trainers, field workers and peer support workers) will develop three training guides for three different target groups: professional staff, peer support workers (“experts by expertise”) and volunteers offering support for homeless people in independent housing. The three guides will be shared, and if possible, tested by a wider audience through a series of multiplier events (workshops, conferences, pilote-teaching sessions). They will be made freely accessible to anyone online in English, Czech and Hungarian.The partnership hopes that this will help to shift the focus on non-institutionalized support of homeless people. By inviting policy-makers and trainers, universities as well as service providers and front line workers to multiplier events we want to facilitate the long-term use of the guides by a wider group of trainers, not only the 7 partners.
The start of the Trainhouse project was affected by the fact that it was first put on a waiting list. By the time we could start there were some particular changes in some partner organisation's leadership or structure, and they had different plans of activities. Two of the original partners - Turning Point Scotland and HFH International Hungary Kft decided not to take part in the ongoing project activities. Turning Point Scotland was replaced by Vailla vakinaista asuntoa ry (Vvary) from Helsinki - an organisation with a very similar profile so that they could undertake the relevant tasks and responsibilities. In the case of HFH leaving, the partnership decided to distribute its responsibilities and activities among themselves. In spite of these changes, the original aims remained the same: sharing experiences, good practices and methodologies that are used to support former homeless people in their own homes. Based on the systemised knowledge collected we started to develop an educational material for training on the field of the continuous learning development for the staff who work in this area. Partners developed 3 guides that contain the fundamental values and principles, and provide practical ideas and tools that can be used in the relationship implemented between support workers and their clients. From our perspective, supported housing means that the former homeless people are not only given access to housing outside the traditional institutional environment, but they also receive support with their emerging social problems, while reinforcing their ability to become as independent as possible. The 6 partner organisations which participated in this process have experience in the field of supported housing. Besides, they all deliver (formal or informal) training on different kind of areas connected to tackling homelessness to their staff, volunteers as well as peers. The coordinator of the partnership was BMSZKI from Hungary, a public body and the biggest homeless service provider in Budapest. All other partners were NGOs. Menhely Foundation attempts to tackle homelessness by running different programs and services in Budapest. St. Mungo’s provides support and services to people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless in the UK. Arrels supports homeless people in Barcelona. Next to relatively small number of professional staff they also rely on a high number of volunteers. Their experience about organising and carrying out the voluntary work brought an unique knowledge that could be used in the project. Vvary from Helsinki is an NGO founded by homeless people themselves, so it has a long history of participation and peer support work. The sixth partner is Platform for Social Housing, an umbrella organisation in the Czech Republic. One of their members, IQ Roma Service has specific experience and training in housing stability support services based on the Housing First principles. During the implementation of the project, the partners organised 5 educational events - Joint Training Sessions. They took place in each country of the partnership. On these sessions the delegates of the organisations could visit and discuss different areas relevant to supported housing, collect new knowledge and share their experiences, challenges and solutions. Issues and topics discussed through on these events: - Services and types of provision in the field of supported housing. - Areas that need to be affected by organisations dealing with supported housing (public relation, awareness raising, advocacy) - Involvement of volunteers into the provision. Risks and opportunities. - Involvement of peers and experts by experiences. Risks and opportunities. - How the social and housing policy of the hosting country affects the field of supporting housing. Another activity of the Joint Training Sessions were to form and operate work teams to develop the 3 guides connected to supported housing. The 3 different work teams developed the guides which dealt with professional support, volunteer work and peer work. They discussed the possible structure and content on the sessions and continued the development as domestic activity. The production of each guide was coordinated by an expert from a different partner, while others provided experts to offer their views and experience. The coordinator created a project website where all presentations of the the Joint Training Sessions were published. The main results of the cooperation were the 3 completed guides in English, Hungarian and 2 of them in Czech. They are available online on the project website and on the homepages of the participant organisations, and were used on different local training (multiplier) events. As they contain fresh and relevant knowledge, they can be used on further training events or in the induction process of new employees.