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Blog posted by: Amanda Dubarry, Wednesday, 28 April 2021.

The National Advisory Council is a forum of senior members of homelessness organisations, working together to share ideas and issues within homelessness, which in turn helps Homeless Link to shape their policy and campaigning work around ending homelessness.

I’m now the Chair of this forum, but I first joined the National Advisory Council a number of years ago hoping that it would help me to be more connected with some of the wider homelessness sector issues, at that time feeling very service delivery focused and struggling to make space to stay in touch with bigger policy issues. It has certainly given me that, and a great deal more. 

I have really enjoyed the networking opportunities with NAC members from across the country, representing large and small providers, local authorities, and providers who have a generalised approach around housing and homelessness as well as those with a more specialised focus. I’ve also enjoyed the opportunity to work more closely with colleagues from Homeless Link. 

The meetings are friendly and a mixture of information sharing and discussion around barriers for those experiencing homelessness, sharing good practice and local area updates, opportunities to contribute to consultations and government policy, and involvement in shaping future priorities for focus for Homeless Link (such as contributing to their new Strategic Plan). 

The combination of awareness raising, knowledge and network development makes the NAC a really interesting group to be involved with. I always come out of NAC meetings feeling inspired with new ideas to follow up on and feeling valued for having had the opportunity to contribute to national policy approaches and to discuss the work of my organisation with respected colleagues in the sector. I would recommend NAC membership to anyone. 

Meetings are held quarterly, and we do ask members to commit to good levels of attendance. We want to recruit as diverse a group of members to the NAC as possible so that we can learn from as wide a range of organisations and people as possible. 

NAC members must be senior employees of an organisation that is a full or associate member of Homeless Link. If you’re interested and would like to find out more, why not come along to our next meeting on 26 May? 

To get the Zoom invite to the meeting or to arrange an informal chat with me or another member of the NAC, please email Aisha.Rajah@homelesslink.org.uk