Critical Moments

The Critical Moments Programme is a piece of work that captures the key moments of a person’s journey through homelessness to find out what may have helped at “critical moments”.

The Project is led, facilitated and evaluated by members of the Lived Experience Collective. We have attended Professional Boundaries training delivered by Homeless Link and have produced the Code of Conduct, Safeguarding Statement and Confidentiality Agreement for the Project.

As an example of this work, The Lived Experience Collective held four user-led focus groups held in January and February 2024. The remit of the group was to conduct group inclusion workshops, with a view to gathering experiences. All the sessions were designed and led by Lived Experience Experts, who are established as a core group of members of the wider Collective. The groups were held in person at the Herring House Trust Hostel, which was comfortable and welcoming for participants.

The purpose of the workshops was to capture meaningful responses to key themes relating to the experiences of people who encountered local services. Discussion tools were used by the Lived Experience Collective to capture the key moments of a person’s journey through homelessness to find out what may have helped at ‘critical moments’. This piece of work has been the focus for the Lived Experience Group bringing together a community of people with lived, living or learnt experience from within Herring House Trust and from the local community to build a network of shared stories and understanding.

Across all aspects of the Lived Experience Work, a Spectrum of Involvement Scale is used to ensure involvement is meaningful and inclusive. Using this scale to benchmark we achieved Level 9 inclusive of all levels, for the Critical Moments Programme.