Starting April 2016 the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness will assume leadership of the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) Housing First Training and Technical Assistance program. The CAEH plans to expand the program as a mission based, non-profit training and technical assistance consultancy to provide on the ground training and support to communities and front line workers.
The mission of the new program is to facilitate and accelerate the shift to Housing First and ending homelessness in Canada by providing high quality, accessible, affordable, evidence based training and technical assistance.
Similar to the MHCC program, the CAEH will employ a faculty of expert trainers working in agencies or private practice across Canada to provide training. Services offered by the CAEH will include:
- Initial core community training to introduce communities and organizations to Housing First
- Customized Housing First training and technical assistance providing tailored onsite and remote training and advisory support
- Developmental evaluation and fidelity assessment to assess a program’s progress toward Housing First fidelity and provide quality improvement advice
- Professional development on technical skills relating to Housing First (for example harm reduction and motivational interviewing)
- Brokered consulting services connecting communities to Canadian and international experts on a range of needs from client prioritization and assessment to system planning for communities working to end homelessness
- Open source toolkits and training curriculum that can be freely used and shared by individuals, agencies and communities across Canada
The CAEH is partnering with Pathways to Housing National and the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness to support the program and develop new training content including new modules for the Canadian Housing First Toolkit.
