Tophouse - an integrated approach to housing and support

Homeless Link has commenced work on developing training products for Tophouse. As a European-wide project, Tophouse is an Erasmus+ funded project to develop an integrated housing and support assessment approach. The project has been designed to provide practical tools and training resources to enable staff to produce good quality housing assessments that also take into account individual support needs.

The Tophouse products will be targeted at a wide range of audiences within the housing sector with a particular focus on Allocation Officers, Housing Officers, Housing Options staff and support workers. We will also be looking to reach operational and strategic managers who we know are key to making structural change happen.

Homeless Link is developing the training resources by combining our technical expertise with the valuable skills and knowledge of Experts by Experience. 

The European partners that we are working alongside have developed the following practical tools:

•        An Assessment of Needs and Rights (Finland)
•        Needs and Allocation of Housing (Ireland)
•        Support Needs Assessment (Spain)
•        Developing Cross-sectoral cooperation (Austria)

In our training, we want to be able to showcase the high levels of innovation and good practice that exists within the UK sector, so we are looking to you for examples that breathe life into this project.

The training packs and resources, along with a study on promising practice, will form a suite of tools that will be freely available across Europe and translated into different European languages. Given the requirements of the Homelessness Reduction Act, this project couldn’t have come at a better time in England and has the potential to support housing staff in carrying out Personalised Housing Plans and result in informed-housing options for people with support requirements.

If you have any examples of combined housing and support assessment, cross-sectoral cooperation or indeed any of the other relevant training packs, we would love to hear from you. Please get in touch with suzanne.baxter@homelesslink.org.uk