Webinar with Branagh R. O’Shaughnessy and Marta Gaboardi, June 30, 2022

Housing First: Europe’s Capabilities-Enhancing Homeless Service Model (Branagh R. O’Shaughnessy, Ronni Michelle Greenwood, & Rachel Manning)

Abstract:

Being able to control your living space or having enough food to sustain yourself are basic personal freedoms that we often taken for granted. These basic freedoms form part of Nussbaum’s Central Capabilities which refer to the essential elements of a well-lived life. However, many capabilities dimensions are absent in the lives of adults experiencing homelessness, who often do not have control over their living space or enough food to sustain themselves. As part of a Horizon 2020 project on homelessness as unfairness across eight European countries, two studies were carried out to examine homeless adults’ capabilities. The first study quantitatively examined the relationship between homeless service type (Housing First (HF) or treatment as usual (TAU)) (N = 565) and capabilities at two timepoints. Findings showed that HF service users had heightened capabilities compared to TAU, and that this relationship was mediated by choice and housing quality. The second study qualitatively examined the capabilities, including internal and external affordances and constraints, of homeless services users in HF and TAU (N = 77). Three themes were identified: autonomy and dependency, the relational impact of living arrangements, and community interaction and stigma. Overall compared to TAU, HF is progressing to reverse many of the inequalities experienced by homeless adults. HF service users have much greater opportunities to maximise their capabilities and sustain a life of dignity and well-being compared to those in TAU. Thus, policies aligned with a HF model in Europe are recommended as a solution for persistent and prevailing homelessness in Europe.

Working with people experiencing homelessness (Marta Gaboardi)

Social service providers in homeless services may experience burnout and stress caused by helping people with multiple problems in complex working environments. Moreover, professionals’ well-being and their working conditions can strongly influence client outcomes. Nevertheless, few studies have been conducted on factors affecting social service providers’ work that may increase the risk of work-related stress and then affect the relationship with people experiencing homelessness.

As part of a Horizon 2020 project HOME_EU: “Homelessness as unfairness”, 17 photovoice projects involving 81 social service providers were carried out across eight European countries. This cross-national research examined social service providers’ perspectives in Housing First and Traditional Staircase models regarding factors that facilitate or hinder their work.  

This study proposes an innovative use of photovoice for cross‐national research that allows participants to express their experiences about a topic through photographic language. In particular, this study showed five main advantages of using photovoice in cross‐national research: visual language, methodological flexibility, participatory data analysis, the bottom‐up process, and the promotion of social change.

The results show factors affecting social service providers’ work at three levels: systemic, organizational, and individual. Some challenges are common to the two types of service: the difficulty with the broader community (such as citizens’ opinions and in influencing policy), the importance of the support among colleagues, and the difficulty in balancing the relationship with clients. Nevertheless, in Housing First social service providers seem to have the best conditions to work since they identified more facilitators than obstacles.

Dr Branagh R. O’Shaughnessy is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Health and Human Performance, Dublin City University. Branagh’s doctoral research examined empowerment-orientated homeless service provision, part of which was aligned with the international Horizon 2020 study, Homelessness as Unfairness (HOME_EU). HOME_EU incorporated multiple perspectives, including that of citizens, service providers, and service users, to examine the issue of chronic homelessness in Europe. Branagh’s research interests lie in empowering interventions for marginalised individuals experiencing mental health and substance use challenges.

Dr Marta Gaboardi is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialisation, University of Padova. She achieved her Ph.D. in Psychological Sciences at the University of Padova in 2020. She is a community psychologist and her research activities focus mainly on: homelessness, social service providers’ well-being and community integration. During her Ph.D. she collaborated at the European project HOME_EU: “Homelessness as Unfairness” (H2020 research project) to examine the issue of homelessness in Europe with an ecological and multilevel perspective.

Webinar with Flora Gatti, May 12, 2022 | Discussant: Alexander P. Schouten

About the webinar

In modern times, citizens’ experience of their local communities of belonging (that is, neighborhoods and cities) has complexified. On the one hand, such communities have become increasingly spatially and socially closed (Gatti & Procentese, 2020), with consequences in terms of opportunities for citizens to experience their social dimensions. On the other hand, the widespread use of location-based social media as integral parts of everyone’s daily life has made them more complex social ecosystems which include social interactions, dynamics, and opportunities related to both online and physical environments (Tonkiss, 2014).

Thanks to their features, these technologies can make the boundaries between online and offline social dynamics, relationships, and interactions permeable, favoring their integration (Gatti & Procentese, 2020a, 2021; Van De Wiele & Tong, 2014). In this vein, their affordances make them suitable for answering individuals’ social and community-related needs (Gatti & Procentese, 2020b; Van De Wiele & Tong, 2014) and enriching citizens’ local community experience (Gatti & Procentese, 2020a, 2021; Hsiao & Dillahunt, 2017).

Within this framework and by relying on the results from four studies, I will address how modern local community experience is shaped by the interplay of (a) citizens’ self-in-community (Pretty et al., 2003), (b) the physical and social features of their neighborhoods and cities, and (c) their use of ubiquitous, locative, social media with community-related aims. The community-related uses of two mainstream platforms (Instagram and dating People-Nearby Applications) will be deepened as to (a) the needs underlying them and (b) the paths through which they can enhance users’ tie to their local community.

Overall, the complexities related to modern local community experience clearly emerge, suggesting that social media could provide citizens with new opportunities and resources to be activated within the local communities of belonging. Becoming aware of these complexities and of their implications allows opening new perspectives for further research as well as for innovative practices and interventions to be implemented.

About the presenter

Flora Gatti is a post-doc research fellow at the Department of Humanities of the University of Naples Federico II. She achieved her Ph.D. in June 2021 at the University of Naples Federico II. Her research interests revolve around the interplay of online and offline social environments in shaping citizens’ local community experience, the impact of social media use on interpersonal and community relationships, and collaborative social and urban regeneration processes. Currently, she is involved in the development of the Italian local case in the EU-funded project “YouCount – Empowering Youth and Cocreating Social Innovations and Policymaking Through Youth-Focused Citizen Social Science” (Horizon 2020).

About the discussant

Alexander P. Schouten is an associate professor of Business Communication & Digital Media at the Department of Communication and Cognition, Tilburg University. His research and teaching interests include social media use, online collaboration, and online impression management. Within these areas, he is specifically interested in how different media capabilities affect the way in which people and organizations can effectively use new media technologies to communicate, to market, to work together, and to present themselves. Specific topics of study include the social psychology of online communication technology, social and digital media, identity management, social influencers, online dating, IT & organizations, virtual & augmented reality, qualitative and quantitative research methodology.

Webinar with Beatrice Sacchetto, 28 April 2022 | Discussant. Prof. José Ornelas

About the webinar

The capabilities approach emerged as an alternative framework for evaluating quality of life, considering broader dimensions of well-being and pointing out the role of the social and political arena that may hinder or foster individuals’ potential. In this sense, it seems to share the same underlying ecological perspective as community psychology, encompassing an understanding of people as social beings within interpersonal, social, institutional, and political networks. The capabilities account is also consistent with community mental health models based on empowerment, recovery and community integration; in fact, the capabilities focus on individual agency and choice converges with decision-making power, self-determination and social participation.

The capabilities framework is particularly relevant for groups that suffer discrimination and social exclusion, as they may need more institutional and social support than other socially advantaged groups to access social opportunities and achieve their potential. Throughout the history people with mental health problems have suffered social exclusion and lack of power in the mental health system. Moreover, the involvement of people with mental health challenges in research and service evaluation has traditionally been scarce, especially in the construction of outcome measures.

The current webinar will present a research with the main aim of contributing to the evaluation and innovation of community mental health programs, presenting a new measure – the Achieved Capabilities Questionnaire for Community Mental Health (ACQ-CMH) – based on the capabilities framework and developed through collaboration with people with lived experience of mental illness.

It will also be highlighted a) the innovation of the theoretical capabilities approach, considering the historical and current background of the mental health field; b) the linkages with community psychology models and values; c) the relevance of the collaborative approach in research and evaluation in the mental health field; d) the main research results and its implications for transformative change.

About the presenter

Dr. Beatrice Sacchetto completed her PhD in Community Psychology in 2021, at the ISPA-University Institute of Lisbon. She is actually an Integrated Researcher of the Applied Psychology Research Center Capabilities & Inclusion – APPsyCI, and the coordinator of the community center of the Association for the Study and Psychosocial Rehabilitation (AEIPS), an NGO in Lisbon that provides support services for people with experience of mental illness.

She recently coordinated an EEA Grants project on leadership, capabilities and empowerment in mental health, and previously worked in an IC&DT FCT project on community integration and capabilities of people with mental health challenges. Dr. Sacchetto has a large experience in both research and intervention in mental health towards a community psychology perspective, applying collaborative approaches to promote community-centered and empowering processes and results. Particularly, she has widely investigated and published about the adaption of Nussbaum’s capabilities framework to the community mental health field, in order to provide an innovative evaluative framework for community mental health programs.

About the discussant

Prof. José Ornelas is a Clinical and Community Psychologist, specialized in community intervention and integration of people in extremely vulnerable situations. Completed his first doctoral degree in the Boston University (USA) – 1979-1984; and a second doctoral degree in the University of Oporto (1999). He completed his aggregation in the University of the Azores (2009). From 2016 to 2019 Ornelas was the principal investigator of the Horizon 2020 HOME_EU Reversing Homelessness in Europe, GA/726997, and is currently the coordinator of the EEAGRANTS Project (OC4-B11 | ISPA) PEER NETWORK: Gender Violence and Empowerment. He is the scientific adviser of a community-based program on the promotion of educational achievement in 5 Portuguese national counties, in parallel with teaching and research supervision of Master’s and Doctoral theses on Psychology.

Webinar with Maria Vargas Moniz, on the International Day of the Elimination of Violence against Women (November 25, 2021)

About the webinar

It is broadly acknowledged that over the past three decades, communities and countries have intensively worked to increase the capacity to respond to violence against women, yet many women still do not receive the services they prioritize and need to end the violence they are experiencing (Sullivan and Bybee, 1999; Cardoso and Ornelas, 2021). The webinar addresses the conceptualization of Community-Based Advocacy and System-Based Advocacy through the experience of the project titled PEER NETWORK: Gender Violence and Empowerment (EEAGRANTS), being held in Portugal, with transnational partners and consultants in Iceland, and the USA. We are developing an innovative pilot-intervention to promote civic empowerment and engagement of women who are or have been targeted by gender-based violence, domestic violence, discrimination and harassment. Due to the COVID 19 Pandemics, the project has been launched with regular online meetings from all the national Portuguese territory, including women who are migrants, and from rural areas. The project is focused also on awareness actions for: 1) the younger generations, 2) future health professionals, and 3) professionals working on organizations for women who have been affected by gendered violence and discrimination. The challenge of building a network of activists including self-representants. The peer network is focused on survivors supported by professionals bringing about the need for a whole series of renovated professional and personal competencies to support and intervene in the field. Based on the work developed by the Peer Network four main topics have emerged aimed at discussing the policy and practice in the field of gendered violence and discrimination, that are: a) The Experiential Knowledge and Expertise of the Survivors, b) System’s Effectiveness, c) Services Articulation and d) Violence and Discrimination Prevention.

About the speaker

Doctor in Psychology, specialized in Community Psychology Research at the APPsyCI (Applied Psychology Research Center Capabilities and Inclusion)/ISPA – Instituto Universitário. Is the Executive Coordinator of the EEAGRANT-CIG Project “PEER-NETWORK: Gender Violence and Empowerment. Has research interests on women and homelessness and since the 90s is a member of a national PT Civic Organization Women’s Association Against Violence. Integrates the European Community Psychology Association Board (Past-President 2017-2019); integrates the PT National Strategy on Homelessness, and the European Observatory on Service Learning Higher Education.