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Introduction:
FEANTSA's annual conference took place on the 13th of October 2006 in Wroclaw in Poland. It was organised in cooperation with out Polish member organisations. The lead partner was St Brother Albert's Aid Association, which was celebrating its 25th Anniversary. Supporting partners were the Polish organisations Pomeranian Forum for Getting out of Homelessness, Caritas Kielce, Monar, Barka Foundation and the City of Wroclaw also lent its support to the conference. The conference was also the occasion of the launch of FEANTSA's European report on the same theme, drawn up on the basis of the national reports submitted by the members of FEANTSA. You can access the European Report and the national reports on the annual theme page. For more information on FEANTSA's working and international working group on health and homelessness, you should visit the Health and Social Protection theme page of FEANTSA's website. You may also be interested in visiting the Information Day Resource Page.

Annual Theme Page

Photographs from the Conference

Conference Programme, including speaker biographies.
Following the order of this programme, the speaker presentations from the day are available below:

Opening Plenary Session
The session was chaired by FEANTSA's President Robert Aldridge. He welcomed all the participants and then gave the floor to a representative of the Mayor's office in Wroclaw. The City of Wroclaw extended a warm welcome to all participants and wished them much success with the conference in Wroclaw, 'the meeting place'. Vice Minister for health Marek Ludwik Grabowski then took the floor. He also welcomed the conference and noted that the theme was a timely and important one. He gave an overview of the many challenges facing the healthcare systems in Poland and EU countries today and the present and planned future actions to modernise the system and make it more accessible to all.

Dearbhal Murphy, policy officer in the FEANTSA secretariat, then presented the annual theme and the main findings of the European Report on this theme drawn up on the basis of national reports submitted by FEANTSA's members.
Presentation Dearbhal Murphy

Bill Edgar, research coordinator in the FEANTSA European Observatory on Homelessness, presented the findings of the 2006 research report from the observatory on barriers to accessing health for people who are homeless. Once finalised, this research report will be made available on the research outcomes page of the European Observatory on Homelessness.
Presentation Bill Edgar

Second Morning Plenary Session
This session was also chaired by Robert Aldridge. The session took the format of a panel debate. Speakers were not invited to make individual presentations, rather they reponded to questions from the chair. The participants were then also invited to ask questions to those on the panel. The panel speakers were:

Frank Mills, Director of Social Inclusion, Health Service Executive, Ireland
Hugues Feltesse, Social  Inclusion Unit, European Commission 
Graciela Robert, Head of the Medicins du Monde (Doctors of the World) Medical Projects for homeless people
Paolo Pezzana, President of FIOpsd, the Italian umbella organisation of service providers
Wladyslaw Sidorowicz,  Senator and former Minister for Health, Wroclaw

 Minutes of the Panel Discussion in the second morning plenary session.

Afternoon - Workshop Sessions
In the afternoon, the conference participants divided up for the workshop sessions of the conference. The workshops covered a range of different themes. The presentations and findings from each one are available below:

Workshop 1 - Ensuring access to health for homeless people
This workshop looked at challenging healthcare provision to meet the needs of homeless people.  It looked at barriers to health for homeless people and how to break them down in order to provide holistic care. It was chaired by Sue Irving, Aberdeen Cyrenians, Former Coordinator of the Health and Homelessness Strategy for the NHS Scotland

The first presentation was by Dr Barbara Peters-Steinwachs: a doctor from Munich who runs both a stationary and mobile medical service for people who are homeless
Speech of Dr Barbara Peters Steinwachs

Father Stanislaw Slowik from Caritas Kielce and Dr Malgorzata Waleria Duda spoke on trying to ensure holistic care in the Polish context.

Minutes and main messages of the workshop.

Workshop 2 - Mental Health, Dual Diagnosis and Multiple Needs
This workshop explored the problems of addiction, dual diagnosis and mental health problems among people experiencing homelessness and how their needs can be met. It was chaired by Pip Bevan, Health Inclusion Project Co-ordinator, Homeless Link UK

Preben Brandt, Mental Health Europe presented how the EU will create momentum around mental health through an EU strategy and what this will mean for social inclusion.

Presentation Preben Brandt

Stephen Philpott, Homeless Services Manager, Multiple Needs Birmingham Project  explored how to tailor services to meet multiple needs

Presentation Stephen Philpott

Minutes and main messages of the workshop

Workshop 3 - The Right to Health

This workshop explored the right to health, what it means in statutory and in concrete terms and whether there is scope for action on the Right to Health for homeless people. It explored the question of equality of access to health and the case-law in this area. It was chaired by Marc Uhry, from the FEANTSA Expert group on Housing Rights

Cezary Wlodarczyk, Council of Europe representative, presented how the right to health is set out, particularly in relation to vulnerable groups

Presentation Cezary Wlodarczyk

Fiona Crowley, Research & Legal Manager, Amnesty International (Irish Section) examined the right to health for people who are homeless and access to entitlements, particularly in the area of mental health.

Presentation Fiona Crowley

Minutes and main messages of the workshop

Workshop 4 - Health Promotion for people experiencing homelessness
This workshop examined health promotion for homeless people – what service providers can do, ensuring that homeless people benefit from public health initiatives and health promotion for vulnerable and hard to reach groups. It was chaired by Clive Needle, Director of Eurohealthnet.

The first speaker was Des Ryan from the Scottish organisation Edinburgh Cyrenians, who presented the Health Improvement Service that the organisation has developed.

Presentation Des Ryan

The second speaker was Dr Nat Wright from Leeds University, who is co-author of WHO report “How can health services effectively meet the health needs of homeless people?”

Presentation Nat Wright

Minutes and main messages from the workshop

Workshop 5 - eInclusion, eHealth and Health Information

This workshop looked at changing attitudes and increasing knowledge in the healthcare profession through provision of information and training and the potential of e-learning in this context. It was chaired by Tamsin Rose, former Director of the European Public Health Alliance.

In preparation for this workshop in a very new and innovative area, the FEANTSA health and social protection working group carried out a brain-storming session on the potential of IT technology in relation to the health of homeless people. This resulted in this short brief:

Thinking About eHealth and eInclusion in relation to people who are homeless

The first speaker was Angela Jones, UK Department of Communities and Local Government, Homelessness Directorate, who has been closely involved in the development of an accredited online university course on homelessness for health professionals

Presentation Angela Jones

Loris Di Pietrantonio, Unit eInclusion, European Commission presented the work of the Commission on eInclusion and ehealth and what kind of projects these concepts cover. He sought to identify potential areas of interest for the homeless sector.

Presentation Loris Di Pietrantonio

Giannis Kakoulas of NGO Klimaka and eSpeaker Leon Georgiadis also from Klimaka presented the outreach mental health care system in the Greek Cyclades, which is offered through teleconferencing. The eSpeaker Leon Georgiadis spoke from Athens using skype teleconferencing and he further explained the technology used by Klimaka and ways that a network like FEANTSA and the homeless sector in general could exploit it.

Presentation Giannis Kakoulas

Presentation Leon Giorgiadis

Minutes and main messages of the workshop

Final Plenary Session
This session was was chaired by FEANTSA's Vice President Michel Mercadié.