Women and Homelessness Erasmus Project

Project Title

Women and Homelessness

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Social dialogue; Gender equality / equal opportunities; Disabilities – special needs

Project Summary

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.

Project Website

http://bmszki.hu/en/erasmus2/about-project

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 133924,35 Eur

Project Coordinator

BUDAPESTI MODSZERTANI SZOCIALIS KOZPONT ES INTEZMENYEI & Country: HU

Project Partners

• Y-Säätiö
• St Mungo Community Housing Association
• Drustvo za pomoc in samopomoc brezdomcev Kralji ulice
• Simon Communities of Ireland
• UNIWERSYTET LODZKI
• FEDERATION EUROPEENNE D’ASSOCIATIONS NATIONALES TRAVAILLANT AVEC LES SANS-ABRI AISBL
• projekt UDENFOR