Study Session: Ending Youth Homelessness by Embracing Cultural Diversity
Between 13 and 17 October 2025, the study session “Ending youth homelessness by embracing cultural diversity”, organised by the Youth Department of the Council of Europe in co-operation with FEANTSA Youth, took place in the European Youth Centre Budapest.
The study session aimed to support young professionals working in homeless service providers with young people from migrant and/or minority ethnic backgrounds. This aim was further developed in the following learning objectives:
- Understand the realities of young migrant, minority ethnic, or racialised people in homelessness and identify challenges they face on the ground.
- Recognise the distinctive characteristics of supporting young migrant, minority ethnic, or racialised people in homelessness.
- Identify the value and impact of intercultural learning and competencies in social work with young people in homelessness from migrant or minority ethnic backgrounds.
- Creating spaces for sharing good practices from services that implement anti-discrimination policies and promote intercultural dialogue among their beneficiaries.
- Improve participants' intercultural competencies by sharing guidelines for how to make homeless service providers and communities more inclusive and advocate for change.
During the week, participants had the chance to discuss the different contexts of homelessness and migration across Europe, to learn about intercultural competences and how they can be useful in their work, or to reflect on changes to make services more intercultural. Participants also had a study visit to an accommodation for Ukrainian families with Roma background, run by the homelessness organisation BMSZKI, Budapesti Módszertani Szociális Központ és Intézményei (Budapest Methodological Centre of Social Policy and Its Institutions).