Homeless Link

🎉 Shaping the Future Together: our new strategic plan for 2021-2024 🎉 Our strategy puts our members at its heart, as it aims to end homelessness for good by ensuring everyone has a place to call home & the support they need to keep it.

Poor oral and dental health is a huge issue for people experiencing homelessness, yet they face significant barriers in accessing dental care. This blog by Pathway Oral Health Fellow Dr Sarah Kaddour is a great introduction to these issues for homelessness services looking to advocate for the people they support. It also looks at how innovative approaches to service design can improve the inclusivity of dental services. Homeless Link’s scoping report ‘Improving access to dental care, provides further information: https://lnkd.in/eyv9w7EJ

🎉 New series of the Going Beyond podcast coming soon! 🎉 In this series, we speak to a number of brilliant social enterprises about how they engage with people experiencing homelessness and multiple disadvantage in a fair and ethical way. Follow the podcast on Apple (https://lnkd.in/eYsiFwX5) or Spotify (https://lnkd.in/eUJjyzig) to keep up to date with new episodes.

The Budget contained a lot of announcements that were of interest to the homelessness sector - some more positive than others - but we are still waiting on much needed clarity around where some funding will be allocated. If you are trying to work out what it all means for your homelessness service, do take a look at our blog, explaining some of the finer points. https://lnkd.in/ew8rtFRp

"What I love about my job is that you are on a journey with people, and it’s possible that in the time you work with them, they manage to turn their life around completely. Even the small wins feel great..." A Housing First worker gives a 'day in the life' account of their role as part of our National Homelessness Skills Framework, which aims to describe frontline roles and the skills required to take them on. https://lnkd.in/eG6jDyPY #HousingFirst #homelessness #workforce

Every frontline homelessness organisation has a role to play in protecting and supporting survivors of modern slavery. Today, on #AntiSlaveryDay, take a look through our guidance for homelessness services on modern slavery and human trafficking: https://lnkd.in/eqqZ7WzH If you want to learn more, we offer a one-day course, developed and delivered by Hestia Charity, on modern slavery and exploitation: https://lnkd.in/euH7xQft

🎧 In this final episode of this series of the Going Beyond podcast, we speak to Helen Emmings from The Nelson Trust and Nicky Pearson from Medway Council 🎧 We speak about the barriers women experiencing homelessness face in accessing support in the sector, and discuss best practice for ensuring services are gender-informed. This is the final episode of the new season of the Going Beyond podcast, but you can listen back to the previous four seasons on our dedicated Going Beyond page: https://lnkd.in/gN8WYKCp

We have published a new resource with Expert Citizens CIC to support organisations who employ or would like to employ people with lived experience of #homelessness. This quick reference guide outlines the benefits to employers and people with lived experience and contains useful dos, don't and top tips across organisational culture, finances, training and development and support. https://lnkd.in/euzWna9H

"Being consistent and going at a person’s own pace is so important in outreach work – it’s not about forcing a person to make changes, it’s about being there when they are ready." From our National Homelessness Skills Framework, this 'day in the life' account from an outreach worker demonstrates what the role may look like in practice. If you are working in or thinking of joining the homelessness sector, the framework enables you to learn more about the range of frontline roles: https://lnkd.in/eG6jDyPY

Yesterday on World Homeless Day I was in Leicestershire to speak at an event organized by the Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland Homelessness Alliance. There was an amazing turnout across supported housing, outreach, health, community and faith organisations, as well as people with lived experience - all keen to share ideas about how to end homelessness. It was really inspiring to be there. You can read a blog for Homeless Link below about what World Homeless Day means for some of those services, including Falcon Support Services, The Bridge (East Midlands) and Action Homeless Leicester.