National Homelessness Skills Framework

Who is this framework for?

• People who are looking to work in the homelessness sector
• Frontline workers who are looking to develop their skills within the sector
• Managers within homelessness services who want to support frontline staff to develop
• HR/Recruitment leads

Why is it important?

The homelessness sector is full of fantastic, committed people. However, we know that retention of people is difficult, as is recruitment. This is partly because there is nowhere to find out what a career in homelessness looks like, or an understanding of the skills, knowledge and behaviours needed to underpin effective delivery.

Homeless Link, working with MHCLG and other professionals from across the sector, have developed a National Homelessness Skills Framework to address this gap, designed to be a key resource to support the learning and development of the housing and homelessness workforce.

The framework aims to create a common skills language for current and prospective staff to help facilitate the recognition of transferable skills, knowledge and behaviours, and support career development, so that skills can be passported between services. This will help the sector to retain and gain qualified, knowledgeable staff, and therefore tackle homelessness more effectively.

The framework also describes the different roles that are available in the homelessness sector - and the skills, knowledge and values that would be required to secure some of these jobs. In this way it will be invaluable for anyone thinking of joining the sector - whether they come from adjacent sectors such as care or health, or are looking for a complete career change.

Please read our 'User Guide' first, which outlines how to effectively use the framework.

This framework has been funded by MHCLG through the VCFS programme.