Homeless nursing grant success story

In 2018 the Burdett Trust for Nurses granted the London Network of Nurses and Midwives Homelessness Group (LNNM) a £8000 small grant for development.

The LNNM is a clinical network of around 200 members, that has been meeting continuously since 1999. It supports nurses, midwifes, health visitors, allied professionals, health support workers and health peer advocates working with people experiencing all forms of homelessness, including asylum seekers, refugees and vulnerable migrants. Students are also very welcome.

The LNNM group meets bi-monthly, runs an annual conference, website, and twitter account and sends out regular email updates. The group has achieved a level of influence over the years, and currently sits on the Board of the London Homeless health Programme. Past achievements of the group also include the first published homeless hospital discharge guidance, and producing a Knowledge and Skills Framework for homeless healthcare.

When the group was originally set up it was funded as part of the funded London Network set up by Christine Beasley (the Chief Nursing Officer at that time). However, this wider network was only funded until 2006, and formally ceased to exist in 2015. The London Network of Nurses and Midwives Homelessness group has continued to meet on a voluntary basis since, and has now officially adopted the LNNM name, but has struggled to do any development work due to lack of resource.

The LNNM has used the Burdett Trust for Nurses small grant to deliver the following outcomes in 2018 in addition to its usual core business:

• Developing a formal Board structure
• Submitting an application to the Charities Commission to become a Charitable Incorporated organization
• Undertaking a detailed survey and analysis of the responses of 60 members regarding the future shape of the network
• Commissioning and adopting a logo
• Revamping the website, and increasing website usefulness and traffic
• Increasing the twitter following from 300 to 900
• Having a CPD article published in Jan 2019 in the Nursing Standard ‘How to meet the needs of people who are homeless’
• Enabling 4 network nurses to undertake funded Inclusion Health masters module places (which were undertaken April – June 2018)
• Delivering five formal Continuing Professional Development sessions
• Developing ideas for a leadership development programme that will hopefully be delivered in 2019

As a group the LNNM feels that small grant has been incredibly useful and recommends this as a route to development.

To find out more about the LNNM or join the network: homelesshealthnetwork.net and/or follow them on Twitter:  @lnnmhomeless.