Program
Workshop
Person-Centred Practice for Service Delivery. The 2027 workshop program will be announced closer to the conference; the 2025 program is shown below.
Person-Centred Practice for Service Delivery
A day of training workshops for frontline practice. Consolidate your learnings from the two-day conference and connect with peers in a more intimate setting, while gaining skills and knowledge to take back to your organisation and clients.
8.30 Skills to Change Lives
Choose to attend Session A or B.
- Maximum of 70 participants.
- Reflect on workforce challenges and opportunities emerging from sector-led consultation.
- Explore workforce development strategies, including mentorship, leadership initiatives and regional recruitment incentives.
- Gain insights into Academy 4 Learning, a professional development platform for the SHS workforce.
- Discuss the role of multi-disciplinary case management in improving client outcomes.
- Identify practical workforce retention strategies to reduce burnout and increase stability.
- Participate in cross-sector collaboration exercises that strengthen local and regional partnerships.
Stephen Hawkins, Project Lead, Homelessness QLD- Alicia Pont, Practice Specialist, Homelessness QLD
- A three-hour program split across two sessions.
- Understand the Housing First model — its principles, benefits, and how it challenges the use of coercion.
- Explore explicit and unintended use of coercion in practice, service models and the wider system.
- Identify opportunities for change to be workshopped in part two.
Leah Watkins, Senior Advisor Supportive Housing, Housing Choices
Ewan Higgs, Housing Services Program Manager, Hobart City Mission- Charlotte Georgiou, Housing First Practice Lead, Unison
10.45 Innovation and Practice
Choose to attend Session A or B.
- Understand how gender shapes homelessness experiences.
- Identify and address hidden barriers in mainstream services.
- Gain practical tools for implementing gender-informed practice.
- Develop an action plan to drive positive change in your own organisation.
- Facilitator: Cara Jacobs, Chief Operating Officer, YWCA Canberra
- Identify your capacity to influence at a practice, service or system level.
- Engage in practical problem-solving on common Housing First implementation challenges.
- Develop an action plan for applying Housing First strategies in your own work, organisation or community.
- Leah Watkins, Senior Advisor Supportive Housing, Housing Choices
- Ewan Higgs, Housing Services Program Manager, Hobart City Mission
- Charlotte Georgiou, Housing First Practice Lead, Unison
1.00 Experiencing homelessness services: reflecting on practice from lived experience
Choose to attend Session A or B.
- Learn from young people who have experienced homelessness and the Gold Coast Youth Service about how to supercharge your practice through advantaged thinking.
- Matt Slavin, Team Leader, Gold Coast Youth Service
- Embedding lived expertise in practice, leadership and advocacy
- The role of allies in supporting lived experience voices and pathways
- Navigating stigma, burnout and tokenism
- Building sustainable, inclusive careers for people with lived experience
- Collective hopes for a sector led by and alongside lived experience
- Facilitator: Cameron Thayer, Chief Executive Officer, Karakan
- Michelle Debert, Acting Sector Capacity Lead, QShelter
- Ollie Ryan, Youth Family Violence Peer Worker, Amplify
- Shai Mikus, Senior Policy and Communications Officer, Yfoundations
2.20 Workforce
Choose to attend Session A or B.
- Understand how age can shape a person's homelessness experience.
- Identify the unique needs of older people experiencing homelessness, including premature ageing and limited housing options.
- Recognise the barriers this cohort faces in accessing traditional homelessness services.
- Receive information on aged care and disability resources such as CHSP, Home Care Packages, NDIS and Care Finder.
- Advocate effectively for clients within and beyond the homelessness system.
- Karen Lococo, Senior Manager Housing and Homelessness Support, Wintringham
- Cassandra Politanski, Manager, Housing and Homelessness Support (Metro), Wintringham
- A deeper understanding of the emotional landscape of homelessness work and its impact on workforce wellbeing
- Practical strategies for self-care and managing high-stress environments
- Insights into organisational initiatives that support healthy, sustainable workplace cultures
- An introduction to adaptable wellbeing tools for the homelessness sector
- A supportive space to reflect, connect and re-energise with peers
- Alicia Pont, Practice Specialist, Homelessness QLD
- Jo Draper, Sector Capacity and Engagement Lead, QShelter