Steering Group
The steering group started in June 2021, and now meets weekly; its aim is to improve homeless health services. It is made up of people with lived experience of homelessness and staff from Arch Healthcare, Justlife and the University of Brighton.
Since the group started, we have grown and developed our own ‘how we work’ practices, given the uniqueness of the space. We use principles of co-production and trauma-informed care to work in a way that is safe, flexible and equal.
The Steering Group has:
Media and Communications
The Media and Communications group started in February 2022 and meets fortnightly.
It was born out of discussions from the steering group on defining the group’s message. It became apparent this was a more specific larger piece of work that needed a separate discussion space. In this group, we reflect on how we want to disseminate our work; be it events, social media or through this website.
The media and comms group has:
Focus Groups
In addition to the regular group meetings above, project members come together in focus groups to explore and co-design interventions for specific subjects.
University module:
In November and December 2022, the Common Ambition team and Dr Kate Pitt (Arch Healthcare) co-created a university student select component that was taught at Brighton and Hove Medical School in January 2023.
This was an opportunity for people with lived experience of homelessness to directly influence future doctors’ practices.
The course is called Homelessness & health, and explores key health issues within homelessness, including mental health and substance use. It also challenges outdated definitions and prejudices of homelessness which will improve the homeless healthcare experience longer term.
This was a successful pilot project that the students really enjoyed.
Inputting into Arch Healthcare services
In March 2023, we inputted into two Arch Healthcare services: their GP move-on service and their new outreach service.
