Groundswell

Groundswell is a registered charity, which exists to enable people experiencing homelessness to take more control of their lives, have a greater influence on services and have a full role in our community. Since 1996 Groundswell have been supporting homeless people to be involved in delivering solutions to homelessness – including peer research, service user participation and health.

Our work includes the Homeless Health Peer Advocacy (HHPA) service which supports homeless people to address their health needs and our Insight and Action Programme which takes a radical grassroots approach to uncovering the issues faced by homeless people and crucially, develops achievable solutions.

Insight and Action. Our Research and Campaigns work places people with lived experience of homelessness at the centre of exploring the issues that are effecting homeless people – with the aim of creating positive social change. Our Peer Researchers are involved throughout the research process from defining the topics and the questions we ask through to using our findings for the benefit of homeless people including campaigning and creating accessible information. Our research explores topics like health inequalities, welfare benefits and legal issues faced by homeless people. We deliver our own research projects and also work with other organisations and statutory bodies to help them make services better for homeless people

HHPA. The Groundswell HHPA service supports people experiencing homelessness to address physical and mental health issues. We work to improve people’s confidence in using health services and increase their ability to access healthcare independently. Our Peer Advocates have all experienced homelessness themselves. They go through a rigorous selection procedure (including DBS checks), attend a comprehensive training programme, and receive support and supervision to enable them to carry out the role safely. In the financial year 2017/2018 we delivered over 2900 one-to-one engagement across London and are planning to take the service nationally.