Making international links to further interprofessional learning: a student-led initiative for the homeless population

Abstract

Supporting homeless people to recovery requires interprofessional collaborative responses. In North America interprofessional student groups have supported traditional services to address the needs of homeless populations. We report on the first two years of designing and developing an interprofessional student-led response to support homeless people in the UK. The project began with working in partnership with local statutory and voluntary services; and was affirmed through interviews with local homeless people. The findings identified that many avoided going to the services provided and 90% would welcome clinical services from interprofessional groups of students. The results have led to the launch of project LIGHT (Leicester Initiative Good Health Team) and today interprofessional student groups run health promotion activities for this population.

• Homeless people
• interprofessional student clinic
• mixed methods

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Prof. Liz Anderson and Dr Dan Kinnair who advised on this article. We would also wish to thank members of the LIGHT Steering Group, Action Homeless, the students and staff from SWITCH and practitioners from IMAGINE and WISH for their support; in particular Maxine Holmqvist, Carole Courtney, Darlene J. Scott, Alixe Dick and Luciano Di Loreto. Many thanks to our international student Pavitra Saravannan who was an early member of this writing group.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.