King's College London

Over 200 people attended today’s webinar, part of the Homelessness series from HSCWRU at King's, which considered The role of Social Work in supporting people experiencing multiple exclusion homelessness.

>> Slides from the session.

The speaker was Ellie Atkins, who leads a team of social workers who work with people experiencing multiple exclusion homelessness in Manchester. Ellie also coordinates the national Peer Network for social workers specialising in homelessness and rough sleeping, in partnership with HSCWRU.

The webinar explored the critical role that social work can play in addressing multiple exclusion homelessness - a form of homelessness accompanied by complex overlapping issues. Social work can bring compassionate professional curiosity, advocacy, system thinking, and trauma informed care to some of society's most excluded individuals - helping to bridge gaps between services and to rebuild lives.

Some remarks from attendees:

Thank you so much for this presentation and the discussion. Really good ideas and very inspiring.

Thank you for today’s meeting. So much need for compassion and humanity which can’t be taught.

This whole discussion is absolutely soul-nourishing in that there's so many others here who can see this is essential! Hooray!

This is nothing short of brilliant 👏. Incredibly inspiring… this has given me a lot to think about.

That was so validating about what we have observed. Thank you for such an interesting presentation.

More about the King’s College London report (2023) on social workers that Ellie mentioned:

>> Specialist homelessness social workers – new report

Jess Harris, author of this report, joins with Ellie Atkins in convening an event focusing on the next steps for policy and practice in this space. The event, on 4 November 2025 in Manchester, will be chaired by the Chief Social Worker for Adults, Sarah McClinton.

Coming up

The next webinar is on Harm Reduction and belonging in the provision of homelessness services and the December event in the Homelessness series is also open for booking.

Please get in touch with Jess Harris to join the mailing list to hear about future events