With the call for workshop proposals for next year’s conference now live, we thought it would be a good time to revisit some of the workshops from last year. Here, we discuss the workshop experience with Hanne Ramsbol from the Danish National Board of Social Services and Marianne Damsgaard Hansen from Municipality of Aarhus, who both facilitated an interactive and lively workshop in Lisbon. Let’s find out how they did it…

Q: Please tell us about the theme of your workshop

A: The workshop presented concrete experiences from the City of Aarhus on how to reduce homelessness for young people aged 18-30, based on its Housing First Strategy. Housing First is a proven method that emphasises stable and permanent housing as a primary strategy to end homelessness. The Danish Housing First Strategy focuses on strengthening floating support services paired with the implementation of a number of evidence-based methodologies for homeless people who are being housed. The perspectives of the workshop are built on national as well as local perspectives.

Q: ESN’s work is very much about knowledge sharing and peer learning - how did you manage to present what is quite a specific Danish policy programme to an international audience?

A:We tried to explain the specific Danish context and at the same time we highlighted Housing First as a programme being implemented in several other countries in very different contexts. In spite of very different conditions among countries, the experiences and results are much alike.

When we planned how to best present the Danish programme, we pointed out the main perspectives and core iss
ues (implementation-drivers) in the implementation process to ensure that everyone could connect to the discussion in the presentation.

To bring reality, practice and the people concerned into the discussion, we showed a filmed interview with two young homeless people and a case manager.

Q:How did you make the workshop interactive and participative so that everyone could connect with this theme?

A:To ensure that the workshop would be interactive and participative, we were conscious that we would have to carefully manage the room setup based on the number of participants and space available. Our workshop was very busy so when we received the final number of participants, we decided to make up the room with tall round tables and no chairs, with approximately six persons per table.

We had formulated different dilemmas for each table which we asked different groups to discuss by exchanging experiences from different countries. The dilemmas connected with the themes we had presented in the first part of the workshop: the five implementation-drivers.

After 15 minutes of discussion, we interviewed a representative from each table to provide feedback on their dilemmas. The whole setting was filmed as an inspiration and product for all participants at the conference to engage with.

Q:What do you think participants took away from the session?

A:We think they got some inspiration from our presentation on the implementation process of the Housing First programme. They also got a lot of inspiration from the exchange of knowledge and experiences with each other. We also noticed that connections were made among the audience for future exchanges and peer learning across countries.

Q: What did you as workshop facilitators take away from the workshop experience?

A: First of all, we learned that planning is everything - not only planning of the Powerpoint presentation, the video and the content, but also the format and framework of the session.

If you want interactivity in a workshop and to ensure that the participants are active and actually get the opportunity to exchange experiences, you have to provide a suitable set-up to make it happen.

Q: Finally, what did you take away from the 3 days of the conference?

A: I always find it inspiring to learn how practice is organised and working in other contexts and countries. With this in mind, I found the conference as a whole – the smaller sessions (workshops) as well as the plenary sessions - inspiring for my daily work.

The visit to the castle for the official reception on the first day was also a beautiful set-up, with plenty of time and space to talk to other people in an informal way; and the Hotel Epic and Lisbon itself provided a fantastic setting for a conference of this type.

Resources: 

• Video excerpt produced by the workshop organisers  
• Video from Ungeindsatsen - The Youth Effort 
• Presentations from their workshop: presentation 1 and presentation 2.