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A week in the life of… a ‘HomelessWise’ information co-ordinator
Fiona McCarthy works for homelessness charity St Mungo’s HomelessWise programme, which provides specialist training to businesses to promote empathy and understanding for people experiencing homelessness. This week, she has been delivering training to LSE university staff and the student union, who don’t want to just pass by if they see someone sleeping rough, but don’t know what to do to help
Monday
I start my week by checking the HomelessWise email inbox for any enquiries. The businesses we work with are often 24/7 organisations, so I try to get back to them as quickly as possible.
There’s a message from one of our new charity partners, Loaf. I’m hosting a training session with them soon and they’ve requested additional information about diversity and inclusion in the rough sleeping community.
I’ve been speaking to colleagues across St Mungo’s to gather this information, and I spend some time reviewing and condensing this into content for the upcoming session.
Tuesday
I updated the HomelessWise Information Portal this morning. The portal is an online training resource available to businesses. Our sessions are often the first time people have learned about street homelessness.
I post a couple of news articles, including one that highlights the work of StreetLink (the national rough sleeping referral service).
I’ve delivered training to several branches of Nationwide and the Sheffield office email to let us know how it is putting the training into practice. One of the team saw a man sleeping rough and was able to signpost him to a local day service.
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Wednesday
It’s training day! I’m delivering two online sessions to the London School of Economics (LSE). The sessions are for staff and the students’ union of LSE. They have initiated a joint project to help the school’s community understand the best options for helping people sleeping rough around the area.
Afterwards, I ask the delegates for some feedback. Amazingly, 98% now say they feel more confident to approach someone sleeping rough. It’s brilliant to see LSE taking an active, empowered role in working to end street homelessness.
Thursday
I join one of my colleagues in the Westminster street outreach team for an early shift. We begin at 6am in London Victoria, following referrals from StreetLink to find people sleeping rough who need support.
The link between the outreach service and HomelessWise gives the training a unique, frontline perspective. It also reminds me of the huge improvement it can make to the life of someone on the streets.
We find three people on today’s shift and are able to make appointments and referrals to support services for all of them.
Friday
I have an online meeting with our corporate partnerships team. We’re working with Wates construction to deliver training to its site and office staff, with an emphasis on how it can equip them to identify and support any employee experiencing housing issues or homelessness.
I also host an online ‘lunch and learn’ taster session, which is open to St Mungo’s partners that may be interested in organising training. I’ve also invited a client with lived experience to give feedback. It’s so important that clients share their experiences in our sessions.
A week in the life series
Our ‘A week in the life’ series features housing professionals talking through what they do in their job on a day-to-day basis.
Find out about the different challenges housing workers in a variety of roles face in a given week.
We aim to feature staff from housing associations, ALMOs, local authorities and more.
Click here to nominate yourself or a colleague for inclusion
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