Addressing the health challenges of hostel workers and homeless people – A Beacon Bursary funded project

Dr Briony Hudson and Dr Caroline Shulman from Pathway and The Marie Curie Palliative Care Research department, University College London, collaborated to create an important Public Engagement opportunity for people who are homeless in London. This project was supported by a Beacon Bursary grant, which are now open for applications.

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Briony’s project began with her research on palliative care for people who are homeless in London. The study found that due to a lack of alternatives, many homeless people remained in homeless hostels as their health deteriorated, as they were often unable to access traditional sources of palliative care. The researchers also found that health care professionals were not always aware of the challenges homeless people faced when their health deteriorated, or what hostel staff could and could not offer as support. There is a lack of training and support for hostel staff in these situations, and a clear disconnect between homeless people and those in the medical profession and elsewhere who can help them.

To find a way to bridge this gap, and to increase Briony’s understanding of the challenges and context of this work, she applied for a Beacon Bursary to create a film in collaboration with homeless people and hostel staff. This project had the mutually beneficial aims of creating a useful guide for hostel staff and healthcare professionals, while creating a space for this often hidden group to have a voice in the research around palliative care.

To find out more about how Briony went about creating this project through the Beacon Bursaries, we asked her a few questions.

Why did you apply for the Beacon Bursary and how did you find the process of submitting the application?

While completing the qualitative research that was the backdrop to our beacon bursary application, I was really inspired by the dedication, expertise and attitude of the staff working in hostels and by the amazing things they do, in really difficult circumstances. Furthermore, I was really shocked by the challenges that participants told us about regarding access to high quality care, especially as health deteriorates.

We wanted to highlight some of the issues and challenges that people who are homeless, and the people that support them, experience if they became unwell. We thought that a film would be a great way of doing this, and we hoped that the messages in the film would reach health care professionals who may not have much experience in supporting this group.

How was your experience of working with homeless groups and those supporting the homeless?

I really enjoyed making the film, the staff and service users of the hostel and day center that we filmed in were extremely welcoming and supportive of the project.

What was the most surprising thing that happened?

Having never been involved in the production of a film before, I was impressed with the way that the producer was able to distill hours of filming into an 8 minute film. Although this was quite a lengthy process, I enjoyed being part of it.

What advice would you give for someone starting a project like this?

Things will probably take longer than you planned, be generous in your allocations of time for different aspects of the project.

What’s next for the film and the project?

We are using the film in training for health care professionals and will also make it available on a website we are creating.  This website will host more resources and recommendations from the research to make them more accessible for hostel staff. We are also exploring collaborations with the palliative care community to roll out the training we have developed for hostel staff around supporting homeless people with advanced ill health.

Explore our other case studies, and apply for your own Beacon Bursary to make your work with community, public and patient groups a reality.