At the busiest time of year for the homelessness workforce, it is more important than ever to centre collective care in our work, says Homeless Network Scotland Learning Lead Laura Ffrench-Constant.
We all know why worker wellbeing is important. Happy and resilient workers lead to better outcomes for the people they work with who are experiencing homelessness. It also means less sickness, absence and staff retention. It means people feel valued and respected.
However, as the latest Frontline Network worker survey highlights, there is more work to do to improve the wellbeing of the homelessness workforce.
It found that 64% of workers felt that their role has a negative impact on their wellbeing. Just over half said they often or always feel at risk of burnout. Wellbeing was the most likely reason cited for people who do not want to continue in their role.
Not everything can be solved with workplace yoga or signposting access to free counselling.
During a fringe session about wellbeing at the annual homelessness conference in Perth in October, we shared good practice examples from organisations across the network.
These included peer supervision, group reflective practice led by trained professionals, line managers incorporating wellbeing check-ins, dedicating time for team building and protected time for training.
Managing the workload of emergency cases and dedicating budget to wellbeing activities – and salaries – is also important.
There are lots of useful resources across the web that workers, line managers and leaders can use.
BeWell’s wellbeing toolkit designed for organisations working in the migration space includes workshop templates, policy templates and a directory of support
Groundswell’s selfcare toolkit includes grounding strategies and helpful exercises to facilitate reflective practice after difficult situations
Over the summer we facilitated play-based workshops for over 100 housing workers about wellbeing. We gathered together people from different organisations to share ideas, experiences and laughter; and the main takeaway people shared was that they felt less alone and comforted that we experience some similar challenges.
Join us on 6 February for a creative and relaxed in-person workshop in Glasgow, generating solutions and ideas for workplace wellbeing. Priced at £50 per space for HNS members and £70 for non-members. You’ll find more information and testimonials on the booking page.
If your organisation doesn’t have budget for training, please get in touch at hello@homelessnetwork.scot or take a look at the Frontline Network training fund which is now available for wellbeing training.
The No Wrong Door action learning partnership was launched in September and is testing out how to create cross-sector, integrated services in four places in Scotland, with local results informing a blueprint for joined-up service delivery nationwide.
The programme aims to make it easier for people to get support when they face severe and multiple disadvantage – when their lives are shaped by poverty, trauma, violence or abuse, or they face other barriers including homelessness, addiction and discrimination.
These disadvantages often overlap but the current model of services that are paid for and provided in different sectors doesn’t reflect their reality. It means people often have to share their stories repeatedly to access all the support they need, it’s costly and it deepens inequality. There needs to be No Wrong Door to getting help.
Homeless Network Scotland Head of Partnerships and Consulting Grant Campbell writes about the need to explore how we can join up services to ensure people facing such challenges get the support they need more easily.
All the way through my career I’ve had the privilege of working alongside some brilliant people. At Homework Network Scotland that also extends to those beyond our organisation and to the many partners and collaborators we work alongside. I’m fortunate enough to be connected in with people and organisations doing amazing things in what is currently an increasingly difficult context.
Many people acknowledge that most, if not all of our statutory services are on their knees, and gone are the days of shiny new ‘pilots’ with five years of secure funding to add a new service somewhere. Controversially, I’m glad!
Now I’m not saying that services don’t need money – they do. Our statutory services need significant funding as do our commissioned third sector partners. Yet if all we do is pursue more funding, there will never be enough money to build the system that we need.
How often have we listened to our political leaders talk about ‘record funding’ for their departments? It doesn’t matter – the hole is always bigger than the money we pour into it.
Increasingly in meetings, no matter the agenda, the conversation seems to always drift towards the siloed nature of the work we do in the care sectors. This is the itch that I feel we need to scratch.
Many of us know it, but we all just play along with how we’ve always done things. We fight our corner, compete for our budgets and argue for additional funding for X at the cost of Y.
I’ve yet to meet anyone who disagrees with this, but who’s prepared to take a different approach if you’re the only one? That’s why we need to go together.
As the old proverb goes, if you want to travel fast, go alone, if you want to travel far, go together. I’m encouraged by this, not least because this journey certainly doesn’t feel fast from my perspective.
Homeless Network Scotland has been steadily working with partners across Scotland towards this different approach… towards No Wrong Door.
Together we’re not only testing change, bending rules (might have broken some…sorry) but we’re determined to learn from failing fast, learn from our mistakes, fixing them and move forward.
The ambition is not only to see significant change in the few areas that we’re working in, but also to build a framework from our learning which shapes decision making across Scotland for the future. We imagine an established No Wrong Door Approach Framework which informs funders, commissioners, service delivery, law makers, and many more.
To this end, we’ve established a National Learning Set, which meets again in the new year. Using the Human Learning Systems approach we’re bravely curious about what works and what doesn’t. Learning wht it will take to break down barriers between siloes and creating paths through the maze for others to follow.
In our current context, this isn’t the time for defeatism. I’m not advocating a naïve ‘talking it up’ approach, pretending all is well. Rather, we need to resist the temptation to fold inwards and extend out to others. We not only need to recognise the connection between poverty, education, housing, mental health, community justice, addiction and health, we need to plan, fund and deliver services that address these issues together.
All in for Change is a team of people with personal and frontline experience of homelessness who work to influence change in the way we address and resolve homelessness in Scotland. The Team first met in December 2019 to help close the gap between policy and action on the ground – to act as a bridge between the Scottish Government and people who access and provide support.
Since forming – and despite hurdles like the Covid-19 pandemic and the housing emergency – the Change Team has stayed passionate about pushing for change and ensuring that lived experience expertise is integral to policy making and culture change.
The Team is represented on the Homelessness Prevention Strategy Group (HPSG) and other government working groups, and contributed to the Ending Homelessness Together Plan. All in for Change has influenced policy around rapid rehousing and temporary accommodation, given evidence to the Scottish Parliament and played a major role in developing the Ask and Act prevention duties in the Housing Bill now going through parliament.
Through national roadshows, the Team gathers evidence of what is working for people experiencing homelessness and the workers who support them – and what could be better. The Team has set out 4 New Directions to end homelessness in Scotland and measures progress towards these goals.
To celebrate 5 years of All in for Change, Homeless Network Scotland’s Michelle Major and Change Leads Shea Moran and David Pentland – who have been there from the start – reflect on the value of the Team’s work and how it has grown to meet the challenging conditions we face.
Michelle: Thinking back to the first Change Team retreat in December 2019, none of us could have known the challenges ahead of us. We were filled with optimism, motivated by a new plan to end homelessness in Scotland.
We were ready to contribute to decision-making by ensuring the voices and realities of homelessness across our communities were represented and heard by those with power to make change.
Within just a few months, the world as we knew it changed, with the Covid pandemic and lockdown. The way we responded to homelessness, and to rough sleeping particularly, was unrecognisable compared to the “business as usual” approach we were used to.
Facilitating the team throughout this time was a challenge and also an inspiration – the speed people were able to adapt, and how quickly we could understand how the ever-changing landscape was impacting people experiencing homelessness showcased the true value of All in for Change – a mechanism to tap into what really matters to people and what really works in services supporting people.
While that feels like a lifetime ago, I believe that experience was formative for all of us, All in for Change included. It set the tone and showed us all what we are capable of.
Since then, the grit and personality of the Change Team has grown and evolved, and membership has naturally changed with time too.
But we’ve never lost the magic of the team, the ability to speak truth to power, to be cooperative and challenging at the same time, to always tell it like it is.
Undoubtedly that’s down to the brilliant people who have chosen to join us, to dedicate their personal time or professional time to the team, to making things better and ultimately to playing a part in ending homelessness in Scotland.
I truly feel that facilitating the Change Team is a privilege – personally it’s the first time I had the opportunity to get involved in something in its development stage and watch it grow into a vibrant team.
Meeting the team each month at our Change Team retreats is always the best day of the month, where we are challenged to investigate the gaps in policy implementation, to learn, to prioritise and to influence at a national level.
And going into our fifth year, we are ready to level up – our national roadshow where we record progress towards the Ending Homelessness Together action plan in 2025 will be stronger than ever with a peer research programme supporting it.
We are ready to create solid evidence about what works and what matters to people experiencing homelessness across Scotland, and to work with our partners to make sure that evidence is able to influence the changes we all want to see – a fairer society where homelessness is not business as usual, and is responded to like the emergency it truly is.
Shea: Mad to believe that the Change Team is five! It’s amazing to see how far the Change Team has come, how much we’ve accomplished in that time, and how far our reach has grown since that first meeting.
I never imagined that a group of frontline workers and folks with lived experience would have so much influence and respect within the sector.
Although I probably should have expected it when you’ve got someone like me helping out 😉
I’m still in the group because I think it serves as a great template for how engagement with lived experience and frontline workers should be done.
Everyone in the group is equal, people feel comfortable enough to express their opinions and know that those views will be respected or that they can receive constructive feedback or criticism!
David: I have been involved in All in for Change since December 2019. I had no real concept of the inner workings of our Scottish Government prior to joining the team. I have learned so much about policy and legislation as a result of my involvement.
Some of the high points in my involvement include being part of the Prevention Commission where we came up with the concept of ‘Ask and Act’ as well as other homelessness prevention duties.
The roadshows were also a real privilege to attend and facilitate. Meeting frontline workers and people experiencing homelessness from across the country was a real eye-opener and really embedded some of the overarching priorities that the team had to highlight.
And they highlighted the outstanding achievements of some local authorities where despite obvious challenges, they were doing their utmost to make individual experiences of homelessness the best they could be given the circumstances.
Lastly but most importantly, we couldn’t do what we do without the facilitation of Homeless Network Scotland and the large input we get from the Scottish Government.
Mhairi Snowden, Head of Policy and Programmes, Homeless Network Scotland
It is vital that we keep the housing rights we have, and that the Scottish Government and councils work together to make them a reality. This is the important message of a letter from Everyone Home, a collective of almost 40 3rd sector, lived experience and academic organisations, to the Cabinet Secretary this week. As a group of people who work every day to end homelessness for people across Scotland, this Collective is clear that we need to go forwards, not backwards, on the right to a home.
The Housing Emergency is not, and never can be, an excuse or cover to water down people’s rights. This is because the right to a safe home is not something just for times that are easy. It is exactly when times are tough, when councils need to decide between one priority or another, that rights come into their own.
Rights in law are a way of identifying – and even justifying – the tough choices that need to be made and setting priorities that focus on getting the fundamentals right. They are a way of ensuring that in the midst of many clamouring resource demands, people whose voices are less loud don’t just get forgotten or ignored.
Our right to a safe home is not just for some people, in some places, or with certain circumstances. Instead, these rights are for everyone. They are about all of us being treated with dignity and value.
And when something is your right – not just best practice or kindness or good luck or you happened to ask on a good day – it gives you dignity and a voice in the midst of navigating difficult life circumstances in a complex housing system.
Yet the reality is that over the last year, councils have openly admitted breaching their duties to realise these rights over 7,000 times. There is systemic failure, says the Scottish Housing Regulator. What’s more, the Scottish Human Rights Commission are clear that the failure to provide safe shelter is a breach of fundamental human rights obligations.
The Scottish Government’s reputation on human rights is hanging in the balance after their broken promise to introduce a Scottish Human Rights Bill earlier this year. They have a job of work to do to convince people that what they say about wanting to be rights-based is what they actually do.
Ministers now need to urgently reassure people who are homeless, and the sector, that regression on housing rights is not ever on the cards on their watch.
Instead, Scottish Government and local authorities need to get round the table to find innovative and effective ways to consistently meet their statutory duties. Scotland has some of the strongest rights for people facing homelessness in Europe – something we can be proud of and should cherish. Now we are asking our policy makers to prioritise making these rights a reality.
The Scottish Government today took important steps towards addressing the homelessness and housing crisis by promising to ramp up delivery of social and affordable homes with £768million of investment next year and £4million to fund homelessness prevention pilot schemes.
Homeless Network Scotland welcomes these commitments, which are crucial to set the foundation to improve things for people and communities now and in the long-term.
With more resources committed to homelessness and housing, we can continue to safeguard the strong legal rights to housing we all have – rights which are the pillars of those systems. Now is the time for councils to use the increased funds coming their way to prioritise resource to make these homelessness rights a reality again.
Money to boost homelessness prevention will help the government, local authorities, housing associations and the third sector to put meat on the bones of prevention proposals in the Housing Bill currently going through parliament.
This funding must be used to demonstrate how the Bill’s new Ask and Act duties, which will require a wider range of public bodies to share responsibility for preventing homelessness, will work in reality. The £4million should also be used to scale up successful prevention practice already taking place in parts of the country. Everyone benefits when homelessness is reduced.
Restoring investment in affordable housing is also welcome, particularly as the £768million announced includes a significant rise in capital spending on the homes we need.
We applaud the political leadership behind this action, at a time of fierce and justified competition for spending – this is the right move to benefit people and communities in the long term. Last year’s £200million cut was the wrong decision and only stored up problems for the future. There is no way to ending homelessness that doesn’t involve building sufficient social housing for people.
This time last year our sector and the people we support were dealt a severe blow in the Budget. Since then, the housing emergency has deepened and homelessness in all its forms including rough sleeping has continued to rise.
The promise of progress offered by the Scottish Government in this Budget is welcome but represents just the start of the much bigger investment in housing and homelessness that is needed to transform Scotland into a place where everyone has a home.
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