The Council to Homeless Persons is delighted to announce the inaugural Jenny Smith Housing First Scholarship has been awarded to Charlotte G.
The Scholarship was created to enable practitioners to pursue an overseas investigative Housing First practice project of a kind that can’t be achieved within Australia, and which will advance Housing First practice in Victoria.
“Charlotte has an in depth understanding of Housing First, and in her career she has consistently demonstrated an application of those principles in her practice,” says Deborah Di Natale, CHP’s CEO. “We are confident that she is committed to embedding these principles across Victoria. We’re thrilled she is the recipient.”
Charlotte is a trainer in the Australian Housing First Train the Trainer program, and in her leadership position for a Supportive Housing team at Sacred Heart Mission, prioritises Housing First principles and provides in-person Housing First training to staff and placement students.
She will use the Scholarship to accept an invitation to attend a Housing First Europe Train The Trainer session in Budapest, Hungary, later this month. This follows her self-funded trip to attend a previous session of the programme in Belgium, earlier this year.
While in Europe, Charlotte will also be visiting Housing First providers in Hungary, Finland, the Netherlands and the UK to observe their services in action.
“I was fortunate to have been able to attend the Housing First Europe Hub Train the Trainer ‘Cohort 5 Session 1’. The chance to contextualise Housing First implementation opportunities and challenges internationally, amongst a cohort of trainers from different parts of Europe, and beyond was invaluable” says Charlotte. “Re-joining this cohort for Session 3 and attending the subsequent ‘Trainers Symposium’ will further my learning and bring further opportunities to build networks within a group of trainers who see Housing First working across many parts of the world.”
“We’re incredibly excited to hear from Charlotte about her first-hand experience of the amazing work that is happening in the Housing First space overseas, and how we can further embed that learning into our training and sector response”, says CHP’s Director of Services, Helen Duggan.
The Jenny Smith Housing First Scholarship is named after former Council to Homeless Persons CEO Jenny Smith, who championed the adoption of evidence-based Housing First principles and practices to end homelessness in Victoria.
Find out more about the Housing First approach to ending homelessness here.