Health & Wellbeing
It is a common understanding that poor health can contribute to being homeless, and being homeless can lead to poor health.
Although information and statistics are difficult to obtain, it is widely known that homelessness is associated with a number of physical and mental problems.
Firstly, health problems themselves can cause a person to become or remain homeless. The leading example is major mental illness. Secondly, living a life of someone who is homeless may cause and exacerbate a wide range of health problems. Finally, the state of being homeless makes the treatment and management of most illnesses more difficult even if services are available. Examples of this can be found for alcoholism and nearly any chronic illness.
This page is a resource for those working within the homelessness sector (especially in the eastern region) who are seeking information to support their clients.
Sector News
The EHN Practitioner Meetings provide a great opportunity for practitioners and allied services to come together to share information and ideas and to enhance your professional networks. We have a broad range of speakers from a range of complimentary services discussing topical issues; programs and new initiatives.
Training
Specialist Homelessness Services (SHS) Training
Council to Homeless Persons (CHP) is the new provider of the SHS Funded Training (taking over from Wodonga TAFE in 2019)
The SHS Learning Program is a central portal for training and educational resources for workers in the Victorian Specialist Homelessness Sector (SHS). The program contains a mix of live training sessions, self-directed eLearning courses and other useful resources.
Client Supports and Activities
The Salvation Army Homelessness East and MIND Australia are very pleased to announce the recommencement of Buried In Treasures - a 16 week support group program which seeks to address challenges with clutter, and to learn new ways of thinking about their possessions.
Research and Reports
In late 2021, The Salvation Army did a nationwide Social Justice Stocktake to get to the heart of what people were seeing in their local communities. From there, they built a map of social justice priorities across Australia.
Practitioner Resources
This guide contains information about discounts and services for eligible households in Victoria. These range from utility discounts, pet registration discounts, dental care concessions and much more. Not all require people to hold a health care card and many services have addtional hardship support for clients with no cards, upon discussion.