Health promotion: a bridge between homelessness and better health

Health promotion: a bridge between homelessness and better health
08/10/2024 Nikki Dudley

Groundswell launches a series of videos and resources on running successful health promotion sessions with people experiencing homelessness.

As part of Groundswell’s award-winning Homeless Health Peer Advocacy (HHPA) service, our health promotion team of staff and volunteers run health promotion sessions (also known as group in-reach) at hostels, day centres and other homelessness and health service providers. We often use this as an opportunity to collaborate with other partners in homelessness and health where we offer spaces to talk about health issues and the services people can access to gain support. A starting point is often using our health leaflets on our resource hub, which have information coproduced by people with experience of homelessness, our HHPA team and health professionals, ranging from topics form anxiety to diabetes to sepsis.

We know our health promotion sessions offer a much-needed bridge between homelessness and health services, who are often dealing with people in crisis and immediate need. Our health promotion work gives people affected by homelessness the time or space to understand rights, learn about symptoms, ask questions and make informed decisions about your health, without having to navigate complex systems or face the trauma or stress of attending a health service.

Therefore, we wanted to help organisations across the country, who may not have our HHPA health promotion team, to run their own health promotion sessions. Thanks to financial support provided to Groundswell as a grant from Pfizer Ltd, we have created a series of training films and accompanying guides. Please use this with your teams, all 3 films will take around 20 minutes to watch. We encourage you to share these with services, staff and volunteers working in the homelessness sector – we can all play a part in helping people to lead healthier lives and exercise their rights to healthcare.

 

Video 1 – Practical considerations when running a health promotion or in-reach session

Resource 1 –  download the accompanying resource

 

Video 2 – The importance of consistency and trust when delivering health promotion sessions

Resource 2 – download the accompanying resource

 

Video 3 – Talking about health – effective and accessible communications

Resource 3 – download the accompanying resource

 

With thanks to our Learning & Development Manager Sharon, and volunteers David, Gareth and Manu for their involvement in the films.

Groundswell have a 10+ year track record of developing and delivering peer led learning and development training and support across the country. To find out more about the packages and sessions we offer, visit the Learning and Development page on our website.

Financial support has been provided to Groundswell Network Support UK as a grant from Pfizer Ltd in order to create these resources.