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Peer participation in tackling health inequalities for people experiencing homelessness

This case study will outline how the #HealthNow project is involving people with direct experience of homelessness in developing and delivering solutions to health inequality through local system change.

#HealthNow is a UK wide campaign that aims to work towards an inclusive health system where everyone has access to the health care they need; ultimately moving people out of homelessness. #HealthNow is led by Groundswell and delivered in partnership with national charities Crisis and Shelter.

As part of the delivery of the #HealthNow project, local #HealthNow alliances have been established in Birmingham, Greater Manchester and Newcastle. Local alliances bring together stakeholders from homelessness and health organisations who are tasked with developing health inequality action plans.
Meaningful participation of people who have direct experience of homelessness is central to the success of the local alliances in understanding the scale and impact of the barriers people face accessing and engaging with healthcare and to coproduce effective solutions to health inequality that will work.

This is how we ensured people with direct experience of homelessness were involved with all alliance activities to promote local system change to tackle health inequality:



Peer Research: A team of volunteers were recruited and trained in research skills, they worked together with a Research Manager from Groundswell to develop a research tool that would ensure we could evidence health inequalities for people experiencing homelessness in Birmingham, Greater Manchester and Newcastle.
Developing the action plan: The Peer Researchers worked with the Research Manager from Groundswell to identify the key priority areas to inform the inequality action plan.Within each area specific barriers and issues were identified, peers met to develop the solutions they felt would work to address the problem. These were presented to stakeholders from health, homelessness and housing and explored to create realistic and effective actions that could be trialled and implemented.
Alliance meetings: While peers have been represented at all of the alliance meetings the level of participation of people with experience of homelessness has grown significantly since we held the first meeting in October 2019. Through support from the Local #HealthNow Coordinator the peers set the agenda for the meeting, present on agenda items, hold alliance members to account for actions and continuously raise awareness of inequalities in the health system through their own experiences & the experiences of the people they support through the delivery of Homeless Health Peer Advocacy.

This links to framework principles: 1,2,3, 4

We have permission to share this, happy for it to be used and for #HealthNow logo to be used

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