Representatives of ten homelessness agencies that are engaged in employing current and former homeless people met on 22nd October 2007 to investigate the business case for employing service users within the homelessness sector.
The purpose of the seminar was to enable agencies to explore the benefits and challenges of employing current and former service users. Thames Reach hosted a conference, entitled National Conference on Employing Service Users in the Homelessness Sector, on this subject on 1st April 2008 and the seminar results were fed into this.
The event was led by Robin Alfred, an organisational consultant, trainer and executive coach, with Kath Dane, Thames Reach's user employment initiative manager and Daniel Rider, Novas’s Head of training and development in support.
Participants had the opportunity to tell each other about their own developments in this area and to share ideas, practices and learning. They particularly welcomed the opportunity to address the various concerns and challenges that can stand in the way of agencies embarking in earnest on user employment programmes.
The London Housing Foundation sponsored the seminar, which took place at the Kings Fund in London, and a record of proceedings and discussions can be downloaded below.
Thames Reach launched GROW a user employment website in December. GROW is an extensive online resource where the agency shares the benefits of its experience of employing service users and meeting the challenges head-on. The web pages provide both practical resources and a ‘warts and all’ exploration of lessons learned.
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