Subject: Recovery approach

Dagmara is a psychologist and has been working with people with mental illness for more than 10 years at low thresholds, with a focus on recovery and empowerment. In 2019, she started offering psychological support to homeless people at Berlin Zoo Station and subsequently at Housing First Berlin. Her focus is on the link to the health care system and the implementation of trauma-sensitive work in a multi-professional team. As a Housing First trainer, Dagmara shares her expertise on recovery and trauma.

Margherita has been working for 10 years in services aimed at homeless people within third sector organizations. She has always been passionate about the issue of the right to housing and for this reason she has coordinated and worked in the Housing First program managed by the Piazza Grande Social Cooperative. In the Cooperative she has covered various roles of coordination of socio-educational projects and is currently vice president. Margherita collaborates with Fio.PSD in the context of sector specific operators training, the training focusing especially on Housing First projects, social and health integration, and community work.

After completing compulsory school and an apprenticeship in the metal industry, I studied "social work/social management" at the Vienna University of Applied Sciences on the second educational path. I was able to gain my first practical experience in helping the homeless during my studies in the context of "assisted living" in an internship. After completing my studies in 2011, I stayed in the field of helping the homeless and worked in the areas of "consulting" and "street work" for a little over two years, where I gained my first experience. After a one-year stay abroad, I then switched to the area of "partially assisted living/outpatient assisted living" in the same field of work, in which I have been working since 2014. I completed the Housing First Europe Hub's TTT - Train The Trainer - training in 2022.

Raphael is a psychiatrist with a degree in public health from NOVA university. After 10 years in Un chez soi d'abord (French Housing First), he works in working first and develops training in recovery oriented practice. His year as an assistant visiting professor at Yale University as part of the Program For Recovery and Community Health (PRCH) was an opportunity to visit several Housing First programmes in the US.

I'm Josep and I have 10 years of experience working in the social sector as a Social Educator. I started working with people with disabilities, with children in care and since 2016 I'm working with this new paradigm HF in Lleida. I believe in this new paradigm and I also think that it is possible to adapt it to the needs of each city. We can do it!

Melanie Schmit's entire working life has been about people in need, among which the biggest part has been in the field of homelessness. She studied social work, then completed a bachelor's degree  in health care management and a study around professional coaching and leadership. Currently she is focusing on education around public affairs. Melanie started out as a social worker in a homelessness service and after that was a manager for several years, mainly managing and implementing Housing First practices for adults as well as youth. Today, Melanie works for LIMOR on scaling up, further developing, and promoting Housing First in the Northern and Western part of The Netherlands. In that capacity she is also training groups on Housing First inside and outside the organisation. Furthermore Melanie is president of the national platform, Housing First Netherlands. She was a co-initiator and co-founder of this network organization that acts as a collective representative for Housing First practices in the Netherlands and Housing First in general.

Muriel is a Psychologist with 10 years of experience in Harm Reduction. She has been a Housing First Manager since 2013 - including ACT + ICM team management - and has rehoused more than 50 clients to date. As a Housing First trainer, Muriel shares her expertise in Harm Reduction, Recovery, Peer work, Crises management, and Violence.

Rémi has 20 years of experience working in the social sector, with experience in a wide range of social and homeless services, including:

• Social Worker since 2000
• Social Housing 2000
• First Line social services 2002-2005
• Family Planning 2005-2016
• Therapeutical community 2013-2018
• Social school teacher 2016-2018
• Health services for drug addictions 2018- now
• Housing First worker 2018-now
• Housing First Trainer: 2019- now

Pilvi's first experience working with people experiencing homelessness was in Scotland year 2005 where she worked as an assertive outreach worker for over two years, learning first-hand about people experiencing homelessness without Housing First support. After returning to Finland, Pilvi went to work with Helsinki Deaconess Institute in one of their newly opened Housing First units, providing supported living for long-term homeless people. There she learned the basic skills of the Housing First approach and community care and how people with similar backgrounds can empower each other with the support of skilled Housing First workers. In 2014, Pilvi had the opportunity to be part of establishing a new Housing First community-based supported housing unit for long- term homeless people. Her main job was to ensure that the workers working in the unit were familiar with Housing First principles and that the support work they did was in line with the Housing First principles. It was very important to ensure that community-based methods were followed, involving residents and workers in the decision making process and everyday life in the unit. Pilvi is currently working as a project coordinator for the NEA project, which aims to stop women´s homelessness by securing their housing pathways. The project consists of eight multidisciplinary sub-projects and my main target with my colleague is to enable these sub-projects to work together and create woman-spesific work methods in the homelessness work field.