SUMMARY

Individuals who are homeless are likely to have experienced some form of previous trauma in their lives; indeed the experience of being homelessness can be seen as a traumatic experience in its own right. Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) and Psychologically Informed Environments (PIE) offer a framework for providing services to traumatised individuals who have or are experiencing homelessness. Both Trauma Informed Care and Psychologically Informed Environments do​ not rely on either diagnosis or formal therapy. What they do create is a framework that emphasises the impact that trauma has had on an individual and encourages the development of strategies to better respond to the needs of trauma survivors.

A number of homeless services in Europe have begun to implement trauma-informed services or use psychologically informed environments there is great variability in how these services are implemented. Many Homeless and mentla health support providers have an emerging awareness of the potential importance of TIC and PIE in homeless services, the meaning of TIC and PIE remains unclear to some. How to incorporate them into an organisation can often be unclear.

This project aims to give front line staff and organisations who work with people who are homeless and have a mental health support needs a better understanding in TIC and PIE and how to incorporate them into their therapeutic approaches to supporting these people.

The Europe 2020 strategy puts Work Based Learning, along with the quality and relevance of education and training at the core to its efforts to improve inclusion. In ‘Agenda for new skills and jobs - A European contribution towards full employment’, (European Commission 2010) participation in Work-based Learning is encouraged across the union and in the 2017 report “Teachers and trainers in work-based learning/apprenticeships” found that Work-based learning in Vocational education and training provides important benefits This project recognises that to achieve this with reference to Trauma Informed Care (TIC) and Psychologically Informed Environments (PIE) it is necessary to increase the competencies of organisations and staff and to meet the needs of service users, involves collaborating with best practice providers across Europe, to learn and develop Work Based Learning.

Over two years, 3 seminars will take place cover;
1. Introduction to Psychologically Informed Environments and Trauma Informed Care (theory, methodology, and practice)
2. Application of Psychologically Informed Environments and Trauma Informed Care in the practical Context
3. Challenges and Problems with applying Psychologically Informed Environments and Trauma Informed Care