Who to contact if you are homeless
Accredited Training
Welcome from Cathal Morgan, Homeless Agency Director
On behalf of the Homeless Agency and its Partners, I am pleased to have this opportunity to introduce you to the new Accredited Homeless Agency Partnership/Dublin City University Professional Development Training Modules for Key Workers, Managers (with supervisory responsibility for Key Workers) and Case Managers. The development of these modules has been the culmination of a vast amount of hard work and experience in the area of training provision, sectoral collaboration, skills analysis and ultimately a formal tendering process to realise the underlying sectoral needs with regard to skills and competence building. The Homeless Agency is delighted to be working with a well recognised institution such as Dublin City University in this important endeavour.
Since 2006, work has been ongoing to begin the process of addressing the skills and competence requirements of homeless sector professionals. The rollout of the Competency Framework and its integration into the recruitment and selection processes within the sector began that process. Since then much work has taken place to address in more detail the needs, resources and options available to sectoral workers towards realising a sector that can meet the needs of service users in an effective and professional way. The introduction of the Care and Case Management strategy, the piloting of the Case Management training module and interagency protocols and the rollout of the Holistic Needs Assessment and Care Planning process all serve to take us further in addressing the underlying issues that long term homelessness and rough sleeping bring.
The vision of the Homeless Agency Partnership is to end long-term homelessness and the need to sleep rough in Dublin by 2010 and is built on the significant work undertaken over previous action plans. This vision is underpinned by the social partners agreement (Towards 2016) and is governed by the National Homeless Strategy (The Way Home 2009)
2008 saw the completion of a comprehensive review of Homelessness in Dublin both in terms of the extent of this challenge and the impact of the collective responses which are currently in place, culminating into the Homeless Agency Partnership Board’s Submission to Government. This submission was made on the basis of needing change in both policy and service responses and for all involved in the partnership to move from managing homelessness to a position of ending long term homelessness and the need to sleep rough in Dublin. You may have participated in these reviews and the much needed debate surrounding the issues we face. I encourage you in the strongest possible terms to continue in this debate and to support the difficult but important changes we must make in order to establish a Pathway Model of services which will ensure we prevent homelessness, where it does occur that people will be supported into housing quickly with support if required. You can read more about this here.
A vital element of making this change possible is you, the professional working in the area of housing and homeless services. In order for both you and the sector to effectively address the challenges which this renewed focus and direction will bring into the future of homeless service provision, it is imperative that professionals in the field continue to develop and enhance their skill and competence base. This is even more crucial in the context of the many and varied changes which will unfold over the coming months and years ahead.
I hope that you will find the modules stimulating, refreshing, empowering and help build renewed motivation and confidence in your crucial sectoral roles.
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Cathal Morgan
Director Homeless Agency