Category: training

March and April training bulletin

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Since the last training bulletin, we delivered a refreshed equality and human rights course which learners described as “superb” and launched our very first blended rough guide course as flexible eLearning and a live workshop.

We also finished a series of four lectures to trainee doctors and medical students, sharing the stories of people experiencing homelessness and the transformational impact that medical teams can have when they are more human. 

Here is a summary of what is coming up in March and April, perfect for lifelong learners, actioning your annual appraisal or for designing a team training plan.  

What’s new?  

  • Join Clan Childlaw for a short training session about the new law that public authorities need to be compliant with to ensure children’s rights are fully realised. Reserve a ticket for 30 April.  
  • Our brand-new digital learning space is ready for you to explore and perfect for staff, volunteer and board inductions. Get in touch to talk about delivering one of our courses or something bespoke across your organisation.  

 
Upcoming Homeless Network Scotland training dates 

We bring good vibes, a blend of direct and academic evidence, and you bring the questions. Our online training sessions are a great opportunity to network, share examples of good practice and learn from experts.  

  • Homelessness stigma; a conversation 18 March 
  • The unequal risk; an equality and human rights lens on 3 April 
  • Trauma informed approaches; beyond buzzwords to better outcomes 24 April 

Training and events about navigating the immigration system 

Navigating the immigration and housing system is increasingly complex, especially with new immigration rule updates that mean people who arrived seeking safety in the UK via a dangerous journey will normally be refused citizenship. There are lots of helpful events to better understand people’s rights and eligibility to public funds, including housing and homelessness assistance.  

  • Free series of trainings about resisting the hostile environment in public services with Social Workers Without Borders, Migrants Organise and PAFRAS. Running March – July and starting with The Power of Words: Reframing the Migration Narrative on 18 March  
  • Free seminar to celebrate World Social Work Day with the Scottish Association of Social Work about supporting young people seeking asylum in the UK, on 20 March 

Wider training and webinars for the homelessness workforce 

  • Frontline Network run a series of free training for the workforce including suicide awareness and professional resilience 

To suggest a training topic you would like to see on our programme, or to send us details of webinars, learning events or workshops for including in the next training bulletin, please email laura@homelessnetwork.scot 

What’s new for 2025 in the Learning Lounge? 

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Happy New Year and a Happy Lunar New Year to everyone celebrating on the 29th of January! With the new year comes new learning opportunities focused on areas including staff wellbeing, and the skills that elevate good practice to great in the homelessness workforce. And on top of that we have new digital content for you to learn at your own pace. 

Have you made a resolution to hone your skills in strengths-based working or set an intention to learn more about the human right to housing?  Are you responsible for the induction of new team members or trustees in 2025?  

Explore our latest training updates to help guide you and your colleagues on a positive learning journey this year and beyond. 

What’s new? 

Upcoming training dates 

  • There are a few spaces left for our updated course The Unequal Risk: an Equality and Human Rights Lens in Housing and Homelessness, held online on 16 January – in our opinion this course is a must for any new board member, frontline worker or volunteer. Book now to avoid disappointment. 
  • For the first time, A Rough Guide to Homelessness Policy and Legislation in Scotland includes self-paced digital content to work through in your own time, as well as a live session on 13 February – perfect for brand new staff or returners to the sector, reserve a space for a new colleague. 
  • Join people keen to learn more about joining the dots between sectors to prevent homelessness at our Closer to Home: a place-based approach to preventing homelessness training on 4 March. Sign up or share with someone in your local area. 

Wider training opportunities 

  • The Frontline Network Scotland’s drug trends training on 14 January is full but you can add your name to the waiting list. 
  • Shelter’s upcoming homelessness training series covers homeless applications, enquiries and decisions and reviews. Run between 23 January and 6 February 2025 for £20 a session or £50 for all three. 

  eLearning and toolkits available to the sector 

  • A new OECD combatting homelessness toolkit offers guidance for policy makers, including information about prevention, models like Housing First and financing. 
  • Simon Community Scotland offers gambling harm eLearning for frontline teams. 
  • The Housing Options toolkit from the Scottish Housing Network is available for local authorities and is currently in trials for housing associations. 

Reflecting on a busy 2024 

Thank you to everyone who came to events with us in 2024! Here are some of our highlights:  

  • We learned with over 200 learners, volunteers and students. 
  • We delivered 15 different online trainings, inhouse workshops and lectures. 
  • 98% of you would recommend the training to a friend or colleague. 
  • 87% named someone they would share their learning with after the session. 
  • 86% made a new connection as a result of attending. 

One of our most heartwarming projects was delivering wellbeing workshops to over 100 housing workers, and their responses to the session were lovely to read: 

“Amazing training, thank you for a day out. You guys really are a breath of fresh air.”  

“Presenters were excellent, very knowledgeable and welcoming.”  

“Really enjoyed today’s training met new colleagues and felt I am not alone.” 

To suggest a training topic you would like to see on our programme, or to send us details of webinars, learning events or workshops for the next training bulletin, please email laura@homelessnetwork.scot 

Why workforce wellbeing matters and what you can do 

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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 

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.

Let’s talk about stigma

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A new Learning Lounge course launching on 5 December explores the drivers and impact of stigma. Homelessness Stigma; a conversation is an interactive, half-day course which will give you the skills and confidence you need to challenge the pervasive stigma around homelessness.

By the end of the session, participants will be able to reflect on the power dynamics in their work, identify stereotypes in representations of homelessness, use positive framing to reduce stigma, and learn about the barriers people accessing services face, including stigma.

In this blog, Homeless Network Scotland Associate David Pentland sets out why we need this course and how it can benefit everyone.

Stigma is pervasive and insidious, and it can be held by anyone regardless of their good intentions.

The judgments we make about people are often subconscious and rarely malicious. But we need to challenge our conditioning and fears, to overcome the bias we hold, making it easier to treat every person we meet or work with equally and fairly.  

To combat the unconscious bias we experience we must confront the issue head-on by conversing and exploring its nature, without any judgment.  

We want to help people understand unconscious bias. It’s really an unconscious reaction to fear, based on vulnerabilities that frighten us. 

It’s important to note that this course is not ‘training’ – that’s why it’s called ‘Stigma: a conversation’. It’s a space to explore in safety and get in touch with how bias works and identify some of the subtle directions it whispers at us from. 

‘Many people will be too ashamed to go into the homelessness system’

Stigma is everywhere and you see it in the media through the use of images of people sleeping rough and beggars to represent homelessness. Only a very small minority of overall homelessness involves rough sleeping. 

The impact these pictures has is that people experiencing homelessness who aren’t sleeping rough may feel they are falling into that stigmatised category. The more that imagery is used, the more stigmatised the majority of people experiencing homelessness feel.  

That can stop people from speaking up and asking for help. And it colours the way family and friends see them, because everyone reacts to imagery. Everyone gets locked into that image even if it’s not necessarily a true representation of where they are in life.  

This can transfer into a feeling of shame. That adds to hidden homelessness, as many people will be too ashamed to go into homeless system. Instead they’ll be staying with friends or sofa surfing.

This conversation also covers the equality aspect. There’s a well-worn saying that ‘everyone is two paychecks away from homelessness’.

That’s not true – the risk is not equal for everyone. In the session we expand on some of the life experiences and factors like a lack of social connections that make people more vulnerable to homelessness.  

The more of those experiences you have – like adverse childhood experiences, being a care leaver, having a background of poverty – the more likely you are to become homeless when you encounter financial difficulty.

When you add in factors like addiction, more avenues of stigma are opening up.

‘Everyone deserves an equal service’

Sometimes in services people cycling through the system experience stigma and end up being excluded from support. Staff can be burned out and can react badly. 

One of my worst experiences was entering a service in Edinburgh to be greeted by a member of staff saying, “Not you again? What is it?” I left and never went back!  That’s the harm stigma can cause. It turns people looking for support away at the door, with untold consequences.  

This course was created by a rough sleeper of 15 years who suffered severe and multiple disadvantage and lived in so much chaos no service would work with him.  All except one person.  

That person – that service – helped him to recalibrate his life. He went on to work as a frontline worker and even spent two years as a policy officer in the Scottish Government.  

We want people to come away from the session realising that everybody deserves an equal service irrespective of where they come from or how they present, and everybody deserves to live without the toxicity of stigma present in their life. 

Stigma is out there and it is killing more people who are homeless than you might think. Come join our conversation – you might help a lost cause get their life back.

Book your spot on the course

We Are All In training bulletin

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What’s new in the Learning Lounge? Stay in the loop on new training opportunities from All In and from other organisations with our regular training bulletin.

New course launch 

What is stigma, what impact does bias have on people, and how do we combat the problem? A new course launching on 5 December explores the issues. Homelessness Stigma; a conversation is an interactive, half-day course which will give you the skills and confidence you need to challenge the pervasive stigma around homelessness.

By the end of the course, you will be able to:  

• Identify stereotypes in representations of homelessness (images and words)  

• Reduce stigma – playing your role and positive framing  

• Identify barriers for people accessing services including stigma  

• Reflect on the power dynamics in your own role and work  

This training is designed for people involved in homelessness strategy and service delivery. It is particularly useful for frontline workers, communications and digital teams. It will also be relevant for community food organisations, journalists and organisations that interact with people experiencing housing insecurity and homelessness. 

Join us for this new training and be a part of the conversation.

Upcoming Learning Lounge Courses 

  • 21 November & 4 March 2025: Closer to Home; a place based approached to preventing homelessness; join the cohort of prevention champions 
  • 28 November & 16 January 2025: The unequal risk; an equality lens to housing and homelessness; save your seat 

Find out more about our learning programme in a blog from Homeless Network Scotland’s Learning Lead Laura Ffrench-Constant. 

Wider learning opportunities across Scotland 

Health and homelessness learning opportunities 

  • Monthly seminars from I-SPHERE and Edinburgh University’s Centre for Homelessness and Inclusion Health (CHIH) include an online Housing, Health and policy conference on the 26 November 
  • Pathways and Crisis have a number of upcoming events including training on 28 November 
  • FEANTSA have a resource bank of reports, events and newsletters about health and homelessness 

Fully funded programmes your organisation and workforce can benefit from

  • ASH Scotland are setting up a new training programme for frontline workers, to train the trainer and improve access to smoking cessation services for people experiencing homelessness 
  • SAY Women run a training programme in-person or online about providing support to survivors of sexual violence, topics include child sexual abuse and links to homelessness, supporting disclosure,  and secondary trauma and self-care 
  • The Frontline Network fund free training for frontline workers, this year topics include motivational interviewing, complex needs, dual diagnosis and personality disorder, universal credit and vulnerable people: the tricky bits 

To suggest a training topic you would like to see on our programme, or to send us a webinar, learning event or workshops for the next training bulletin please email laura@homelessnetwork.scot