Programme Overview

Future Foundations is a new, structured training programme that builds the skills, knowledge and confidence of volunteers with lived experience of homelessness, and of the managers who support them. It helps organisations get ready to offer clear, tangible pathways to paid employment.

Many people with lived experience enter the sector through volunteering. They bring valuable insight and credibility to frontline services, but often lack a clear, supported route into paid roles with progression. Future Foundations addresses this gap by pairing targeted training and development with organisational readiness.

Future Foundations offers two fully funded parallel tracks: one for a volunteer with lived experience of homelessness, and one for the member of staff who oversees or supports the volunteer in their organisation.

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Eligibility

For the Delegate's Track:

To be eligible as a Delegate for Future Foundations you must:

  • Currently in a volunteer role with the organisation. 

  • Have lived experience of homelessness (though we will never ask you to share your story).

  • Be interested in exploring a career in the homelessness sector.

  • Commit to attending 12 full days of in-person workshops and 3 additional online reflective sessions.

For the Manager's Track:

To be eligible for the Manager's Track for Future Foundations you must:

  • Directly oversee (or be positioned to oversee) volunteer with lived experience participating in the programme.

  • Have an endorsement from your line manager or board to commit the time to complete the manager training track.

  • Be willing to implement trauma-aware supervision and actively support paid career pathways for volunteers.

  • Commit to attending 3 half day workshops for the manager's track.
  • Icon Training

    12 in-person workshops for volunteers

  • EDI

    3 half-day online workshops for managers

“People with lived experience of homelessness add value to the workforce, having a genuine and deep understanding and destigmatising of service user issues, acting as role models for what clients can achieve, and reducing the power imbalance between organisations and clients.”
Mapping the Homelessness Workforce (Homeless Link, 2025)

Programme Tracks

Delegate Track

12 full day in-person workshops for a current volunteer with lived experience in the sector.


By the end of the Delegate Track, you will:

  • Have built your self-awareness and wellbeing: understand emotional intelligence and trauma-informed practice, recognise stress and triggers in yourself and others, and use practical strategies for self-care and emotional regulation.

  • Understand professional practice in homelessness services: learn about professional boundaries, safeguarding, duty of care, and clear, fact-based recording, and make informed choices about whether, when and how to share your lived experience at work.

  • Develop person-centred support skills: use strengths-based and motivational interviewing techniques to explore someone's hopes and strengths, and create support plans with SMART actions.

  • Prepare confidently for paid work: identify the roles you want, find vacancies, build an adaptable CV and skills bank, tailor applications, and practise interviews using the STAR method.

  • Plan your next steps: reflect on your strengths and readiness, build a personal progression plan, prepare for the move from volunteering to paid employment, and join a peer network with your manager alongside you.

Manager Track

3 half day online workshops for a member of staff who supports, manages, or coordinates volunteers in the organisation.

By the end of the Manager Track, you will:

  • Value lived experience as expertise: understand why lived experience is a genuine form of expertise, and how to value it without defining someone by it or tokenising it.

  • Create a safe, supportive space: apply trauma-informed principles in your management, and build a psychologically safe space where people choose whether, when and how to share their experience.

  • Supervise with confidence: hold trauma-aware supervision conversations, recognise signs of distress, burnout or boundary issues, use structured check-ins, and know when to escalate concerns.

  • Support career progression: use a simple coaching model in supervision and reviews, and create opportunities for volunteers to take on responsibility, shadow other roles and build their CV.

  • Turn plans into action: help your volunteer put their skills map and progression plan into practice, and join them at the Welcome and Celebration Days to build trust and celebrate together.
Volunteering is the second most common route into homelessness sector jobs, demonstrating the importance of volunteer development.
Mapping the Homelessness Workforce (Homeless Link, 2025)
  • EDI

    Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

    To reduce barriers to accessibility and ensure that EDI and the voice of people with lived experience were considered throughout, this programme was co-designed with the tremendous support of Expert Link and their brilliant lived experience panel and further developed by EDI specialists with lived experience of homelessness.
  • Expertise

    Additional Support

    As part of our aim to establish clear pathways from pre-employment to paid roles, this programme offers organisations the following sessions or guidance: • DWP: Recruitment Funding Schemes • Focus Session: An open space to support the development of entry level roles • Volunteer and New Starter Good Practice and Top Tips
  • MHCLG logo

    Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Any questions?

Partnership Manager - Rachel Bryan

Rachel Bryan

National Workforce Ambassador