We’re delighted to welcome two fantastic speakers who will be sharing their insights from two fascinating research studies.
Our first speaker is Dr Mandeep Singh Kallu, Senior Clinical Psychologist and NHS Workforce Racial Equality Expert. Mandeep will share the findings from research done through the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration in the South-West Peninsula. The research focused on the conceptualisation of psychological trauma in homeless hostel support workers.
The study looks at how workplace trauma is conceptualised by homeless hostel support workers due to their exposure to a complex client group and complex and stressful work situations. Mandeep will share qualitative data derived from semi-structured interviews carried out with hostel workers in the Southwest of England. The data highlights: the vulnerability of lived experiences within such roles, how repeated exposure to chronic stressors can be detrimental to their own mental health, how a perceived level of responsibility relating to duty of care increases stress, and how avoidance is used as a coping strategy for adverse feelings relating to work. Mandeep will provide recommendations for acknowledging and redefining the role of a support worker in a homeless hostel environment. Recommendations will also suggest how services and other professions can support hostel workers appropriately.
We would like to extend invites to people working in homeless hostels to hear about the research and contribute to the discussion. Please feel free to forward the meeting invite to any hostel workers in your area who would be interested in joining the meeting.
Mandeep currently works for the Rough Sleeper Initiative at Greater Manchester Mental Health (GMMH) NHS Foundation Trust. Prior to this, Mandeep was a clinical psychologist at Livewell Southwest – Health Inclusion Pathway Plymouth. In this role, he set up a P.I.E clinical psychology service alongside doing his doctoral training at the University of Plymouth. Since 2023, Mandeep has been working as a researcher with NIHR PenARC. He is the sole clinical psychologist working in the NHS as a Workforce Racial Equality Standard Expert where he supports NHS Trusts with racial equality and equity issues.
Our second item will explore the question ‘How are we thinking about assessing mental capacity for people experiencing multiple exclusion homelessness (MEH)?’
Factors which contribute to people becoming and remaining homeless, such as mental ill health, substance use, trauma, and self-neglect, also prompt concerns about mental capacity. Any of these factors might indicate we should explore if there is any impairment in decision making, particularly if someone is facing risk and not receiving or accepting support. This presentation will share and discuss emerging findings from a national study exploring practitioner approaches and the views of people experiencing MEH.
This item will be led by Jess Harris, a Research Fellow in the Health & Social Care Workforce Research Unit (HSCWRU) at King’s College London. She is working on a study of mental capacity and homelessness, following a focus on safeguarding responses to multiple exclusion homelessness and self-neglect. Her webinar series on homelessness health and social care is free and open to all.
If you would like to attend the session, please contact faculty@pathway.org.uk and we will forward the meeting invite.