Individuals who are homeless are likely to have experienced some form of previous trauma in their lives; indeed the experience of being homelessness can be seen as a traumatic experience in its own right. Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) and Psychologically Informed Environments (PIE) offer a framework for providing services to traumatised individuals who have or are experiencing homelessness. Both Trauma Informed Care and Psychologically Informed Environments do​ not rely on either diagnosis or formal therapy. What they do create is a framework that emphasises the impact that trauma has had on an individual and encourages the development of strategies to better respond to the needs of trauma survivors. A number of homeless services in Europe have begun to implement trauma-informed services or use psychologically informed environments there is great variability in how these services are implemented. Many Homeless and mentla health support providers have an emerging awareness of the potential importance of TIC and PIE in homeless services, the meaning of TIC and PIE remains unclear to some. How to incorporate them into an organisation can often be unclear.This project aims to give front line staff and organisations who work with people who are homeless and have a mental health support needs a better understanding in TIC and PIE and how to incorporate them into their therapeutic approaches to supporting these people.The Europe 2020 strategy puts Work Based Learning, along with the quality and relevance of education and training at the core to its efforts to improve inclusion. In ‘Agenda for new skills and jobs - A European contribution towards full employment’, (European Commission 2010) participation in Work-based Learning is encouraged across the union and in the 2017 report “Teachers and trainers in work-based learning/apprenticeships” found that Work-based learning in Vocational education and training provides important benefits This project recognises that to achieve this with reference to Trauma Informed Care (TIC) and Psychologically Informed Environments (PIE) it is necessary to increase the competencies of organisations and staff and to meet the needs of service users, involves collaborating with best practice providers across Europe, to learn and develop Work Based Learning. Over two years, 3 seminars will take place cover;1.Introduction to Psychologically Informed Environments and Trauma Informed Care (theory, methodology, and practice)2.Application of Psychologically Informed Environments and Trauma Informed Care in the practical Context 3.Challenges and Problems with applying Psychologically Informed Environments and Trauma Informed Care Each seminar will take place over 4 days and will be broken down into 4 days 1. TIC and PIE project/services visits2. Talks on TIC and PIE3. Workshops on TIC and PIE4. Evaluation/reflection day. During these four-day seminars leaders in best practice will give insight into how they use Trauma Informed Care and Psychologically Informed Care can be used to support those who use their services. Inspiring change in services across Europe and imparting greater understanding on the practicalities of what TIC and PIE are in practice and not just in theory.Central to each seminar will be the voice and experience of those who use and are supported by homeless services in Europe. Visits to projects to see PIE and TIC being used in a practical setting and to allow experts to show how TIC and PIE can be used to improve a service will also be central to each seminar. The larger objectives of the project are;To develop core competencies​ of staff working in homeless organisations across Europe on Trauma Informed Care and Psychologically Informed Environments through talks, workshops and service visits.To begin a social dialogue on how best to implement Trauma Informed Care and Psychotically Informed Environments in services To improve the health and well being of Service Users in participating organisations and wider Homeless and mental health services in EuropeTo recognise the importance of informal learning via sharing best practices Provide participants with the skills to recognize the impact of trauma and encourages the development of strategies for better responding to the needs of trauma survivors.Embedding of TIC and PIE methods into the strategy of partner organisationsStaff training will have a strong emphasis on these models and methodsImproved quality of service -providing effective, medically-evidenced care models for those most at risk.Enhanced capacity and expertise across the services

Homelessness is a widespread problem in Europe, it affects different categories of citizens and is on the rise. The profile of the homeless population has changed: it affects families, women, young people, migrants, people with precarious jobs, working poors. According to FEANTSA (2018) there are ca. 700.000 homeless in Europe, often off the radar of social welfare systems or inadequately protected. COVID-19 will radicalize such emergency.HOOD (Homeless’ open dialogue) will focus on adopting an early approach with people who have ended up living on the streets recently and with people at risk. The idea is that it is necessary to intervene as quickly as possible to avoid that such person moves from being without a house to assuming traits commonly associated to longer-term homeless, in a state of severe marginalization, with heavier consequences on one person’s life and on the entire society.Social professionals (intended in broad terms as: educators, counselors, mediators, therapists, psychologists, care consultants, social anthropologists, social workers) dealing with these profiles will be engaged in HOOD activities, will share their expertise acquired in local contexts and will be trained in the use of new methodologies to better engage and support the homeless with a preventive approach.The project will involve 6 partners from 5 European countries.-4 operative partners: Ufficio Pio (Leader, IT), SJD (ES), Project UDENFOR (DK), KLIMAKA (GR)2 to 5 professional for each organization will be directly involved in project activities and will transfer their knowledge and lessons learned up to 20 professionals per country, with spillover effects on other organisations.-2 scientific partners: UniTO (IT) and CESIS (PT).Associated partners will be FEANTSA (BE), fio.PSD (IT) and HOGAR Sì (ES).HOOD has 3 Intellectual Outputs:IO1 Profile study: aiming at identifying the common profiles of people who have recently become homeless or at risk of becoming it, in order to 1) raise awareness and promote prevention measures to a wide community of professionals and organisations dealing with these profiles and 2) to provide social professionals with a tool for implementing early intervention measures, by focusing on inclusion and training and on connections on the territory.IO2 HOOD intervention models and practices: it will focus on the design of innovative intervention models and practices, by drawing inspiration specifically from the “Open Dialogue” and the approach of “Capacitive co-design” for the treatment of people identified by IO1. This approach allows to implement a method of meeting between professionals and recipients with the aim of identifying objectives and strategies to empower the person to be protagonist of its own change, building an emancipation path. Partners will design and test the models sharing experience at international level.IO3 Intervision methodology and platform: it will focus on the design and testing of an intervision methodology and an online tool (platform) targeted at social professionals dealing with people who have recently become homeless and people at risk. This methodology and platform will support professionals with an equivalent level of preparation to reflect on their practices, supporting each other in improving their skills, in a kind of peer-to-peer coaching. Partners will design the methodologies and test them during the project lifetime.The project activities will have a broad impact on the involved social professionals and organisations: improved understanding of recipients’ needs, involvement in the development of methodologies focused on valuing the recipients’ potential and competences, improved engagement capacity, improved coaching and training methodologies, improved technical skills to make better use of the different resources available for recipients, capacity to design effective training and guidance paths, improved interaction with other operators, increased self-confidence and self-esteem, improved sense of ownership and perception of being an agent of change also through the co-creation of tools, higher ability to act in a peer-to-peer perspective, by adopting of an Open Dialogue approach.The project will also involve:-other social purpose/welfare organizations who can replicate and experiment HOOD methodologies, both working through an early intervention approach and with recipients with a history of homelessness chronicity;-local communities, most notably those dealing with vulnerable categories and actions to promote their inclusion;-policy makers, decision makers and stakeholders (from small scale to international level);-the research community.The long-term benefit will be an increased awareness of the phenomena of new homelessness and of homelessness risk, an increased knowledge and application of prevention measures and of the developed methodologies among European social professionals and organisations.

The project Dignity & Well-Being: exchange for changing (D&WB) aimed at creating a strategic partnership for vocational education and training of professionals working with homeless and refugees with a special focus on the most deprived and severely mentally ill as well as promoting improvements in terms of quality, innovation and excellence in the training of professional workers in social and mental health field, especially for those working with homeless and refugees with mental illness.To accomplish these two general objectives, based on an international network of professionals working with homeless in different kinds of organizations and countries, the project developed four Short term joint staff training events that consisted on the presentation and discussions of cases studies, which allowed to identify and learn new and innovative solutions and, at the same time, to produce a manual, a training curriculum and training tools that can be shared and spread among other professionals and organizations.The project network included eight organizations that have a long experience on the delivery of services to the mentally ill and the most social excluded, combining organizations from both the public and private, as well as the health and social sectors.It used a methodology based on intervision by peers in Short term joint staff training events with relatively small groups of experienced professionals. Through a program of visits and workshops, the participants had the opportunity to present case profiles, focused on situations of homelessness, to evaluate similarities and differences in the difficulties and interventions and to identify good practices considering the four pillars initially identified (Social, Health, Housing and Recovery) and three beams introduced during the project (Outreach, Networking and Staff care).From these four Short term joint staff training events and a lot of research work between them, resulted two intellectual outputs: A training curriculum aimed at the grounding of professionals working in the social and of mental health areas to understand and respond appropriately to the needs of homeless people and a manual reflecting practical approaches to working with homeless people with mental health problems.Both intellectual outputs are complementary and can be used in the delivery of lifelong learning activities aimed at the professionals working with the homeless.The Multiplier Event gave the opportunity to present the Intellectual Outputs and to discuss the conclusions of the project with a wider forum, with more participants and experts from other countries outside the partnership.The partners implemented several dissemination activities taking the results of the project to a wider audience, raising the awareness of the complexity of homeless conditions. The dissemination of the project was, therefore, an opportunity to disseminate values and information on the approach to these complex problems and the mentioned audience are the main stakeholders but, at the same time, the vehicle to spread information and training tools that will help professionals in their efforts to fight social exclusion.Partners will continue to develop activities of the same scope and promote new projects together or with other partners in the context of a wider international network of professionals working with homeless in different kinds of organizations and countries.

Partners of the Women and Homelessness strategic partnership agreed to exchange good practice and expertise about their work with homeless women, in order to improve their services for this target group. Homelessness services have traditionally designed for male users, ignoring the specific female needs of homeless women as well as the different ways homeless women take when becoming homeless (especially the link to intimate partner or gender-based violence and the relationship with children). The partnership gathered several organisations that have different expertise in the field of tackling against homelessness and we collected our existing knowledge that can be adapted in the different service environments. One of our main aims was to observe the situation of women who encounter our services, and the cooperation of the Partners highlighted the gaps and barriers that women in housing poverty face during their journey. The shared results and findings contributed for Partners to develop and/or update their internal policies, structures to better work with homeless women and to learn about the involvement and empowerment of service users. Beside this, we attempted to raise awareness of the importance of these topics between policy makers, stakeholders and associated organisations. Partners designated contact people to facilitate the implementation of the project, and they were responsible to set up a detailed work plan, and evaluate the implementation phase. Originally three occasions were dedicated for them to meet in person but due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the travel restrictions linked to it, the last meeting for the evaluation was held online. During the project six joint training sessions were organised, each of them designed to involve specific themes that women experience homelessness facing. The delegates from the partner organisations were staff members who have relevant knowledge related to the topic of the event but other actors were involved too, usually from that country where the event was held. In this way, wider expertness could become part of the discussion which contributed to further cooperation between providers at the local level. The joint training events covered the following topics:-Enhancing mothers' self-esteem in connection to their motherhood and relationship with their children -Sexual health, special health needs of homeless women-Establishing emotional and physical safety for women who experienced intimate partner and gender-based violence-Approaching and responding to the needs of women sleeping rough, supporting couples to prevent domestic abuse -Client involvement and participation - empowering women with peer support and community-based approaches -Supporting women with addiction, the experience of service users of LGBTQI+ community Throughout these trainings, we were able to share practices and tools that are used in different environments to respond to the women’s needs. Besides we were able to lay down common principles and values to enhance the competence of professional staff and raised their awareness for special support needs of women service users. Partners have put emphasis on the involvement of their clients during the preparation for the training events and in some cases, service users also were involved in the training events which allowed them to share their personal views and facilitated the professionals to understand their situation better. The acquired knowledge contributed to the update and development of the existing internal policies and facilitated the process of setting up more gender-specific ways of work, while partners were able to introduce new programs and tools aiming at the support of women service users within their organisations.Above this, the results of our cooperation contributed to the work of the women's cluster of FEANTSA (An umbrella organisation of experts and NGOs that works to end homelessness in Europa.), while our network was widened with contributors of this cluster. That can open new opportunities to collaborate on more issues related to the support of women experiencing homelessness in the future.