About the FEANTSA Mentoring Program
The FEANTSA mentoring program provides a space to connect young professionals working in the homeless sector with experienced professionals from across Europe. The program is designed to encourage sharing of knowledge, experience and expertise between European countries and support the professional development of people working in the homelessness sector. Across the FEANTSA network we have significant expertise on what works and what doesn’t work. Through the FEANTSA Youth Network we have seen the drive of young professionals committed to delivering better services for people experiencing homelessness. Through informal mentoring and networking across the network these professionals have delivered social innovation, human rights based approaches & trainings in their organisations. This program aims to offer a framework to support a greater number of young professionals tap into the expertise of the European homeless sector in driving solutions, research, evidence and practices to end homelessness.
How it works
Mentoring can take different forms and range from a once off conversation providing insights from the mentor’s experience to a series of conversations and/or email exchanges around a project proposal.
Both mentors and mentees fill out a short online form. For mentors this captures your areas of expertise that you’d like to mentor in and for mentees it captures the themes or topics you wish to discuss and advance with a mentor. FEANTSA will then match mentor and mentees together, based on the expertise required, language preferences & the availability of mentors. Mentoring will generally take place via skype, zoom or a similar program. The length of the mentoring will depend on the topic and needs of the mentee, it may simply be a once off call or a series of calls.
If you are interested in becoming a mentor, you can find out more here. If you’d like to register as a mentor with FEANTSA you can click here
If you are interested in being mentored, you can find out more here. If you’d like to register as a mentor with FEANTSA you can click here.
Why mentoring?
In 2015 FEANTSA established FEANTSA Youth a network of young professionals working to combat youth homelessness in Europe, comprising alumni from our Study Sessions with the Council of Europe. Informally some alumni received mentoring in their work which led to amazing changes in how services were designed and delivered to people at risk of or experiencing homelessness. Our Mentoring Program is designed to support a larger number of professionals seek the guidance and support they need to maximise their potential like the stories below.
Lisa & Housing First for Youth Project. Lisa a Service Manager in Waterford, Ireland. Having participated in study sessions on youth homelessness and human rights she became interested in ways of integrating human rights into her work and the services she managed. Through FEANTSA she was connected with Housing First experts in Europe & North America which helped her develop one of the first Housing First for Youth services in Europe and is now a trainer with the Housing First Europe Hub.
Judit & Work Placement in Scotland. Judit is a psychologist in Budapest working with homeless services. Through participation in FEANTSA Study Sessions Judit learned about how different services operated across Europe. With the support of the Erasmus fund Judit did a work placement with the Rock Trust in Scotland, a dedicated homeless youth service, to acquire new learning and find new ways of delivering services in Budapest.
More information
If you are interested in learning more about the mentoring program you can contact, robbie.stakelum@feantsa.org
Interested?
Want to become a mentor? Register here.
Want to become a mentee? Register here.
FEANTSA Mentoring Resources
Meet our mentors
Lisa O'Brien
I'm am a manager of a variety of services for people who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness in the South East of Ireland . They include : Youth Services, Education Services, Prevention services, Housing First Services . I sit on the Feantsa AC as a representative of the Youth Network and am chair of the Strategic Development Group. I have created and deliver training on Housing First for Youth for the Housing First Europe hub with Youth Network colleagues. Areas that I could provide mentoring on include :.
Robbie Stakelum
Organisation: FEANTSA
Position: Policy Officer
I'm a policy officer with FEANTSA. As a Course Director with the Council of Europe I have organised a series of trainings on youth homelessness. While I lead on FEANTSA's thematic work on youth and LGBTIQ homelessness I have also chaired the EU Urban Poverty working group on homelessness bringing cities, national authorities and European organisations together to discuss solutions to homelessness.