Leadership & Training

What happens behind the scenes makes all the difference in how we show up. H4A staff and volunteers engage in ongoing training and shared leadership practices that strengthen our collective ability to reduce harm, resolve conflict, and model a different way of caring for one another.

Self Advocacy & Community Change

 

For two hours once a month, all staff and volunteers come together for a meeting devoted to analyzing problems and moments of conflict that occur inside and around our Hub. Staff and volunteers operate in thematic sociocratic work circles to propose adjustments to program practices and protocols.

This approach facilitates shared decision-making power and generates innovative ideas that combat oppressive habits and improve Hub harmony. This is our laboratory for developing new ideas on how city, county, and health care services might reorient to reduce the harm and oppression our most vulnerable unsheltered residents too often experience.

Together, we focus on refining H4A’s unique trauma-informed mutual aid model (see below); building cross-community advocacy and problem-solving skills to confront harmful policies and practices; and expanding the workshops that train and empower every member of our team.

 

Core Areas of Focus

De-escalation & harm reduction

Mental health first aid

Assisting individuals who’ve experienced trauma

Recognizing, disrupting, and reducing racist, sexist, & anti-LGBTQ harm

H4A practices for taking accountability for harm

Sociocratic decision-making

Leadership for new houseless led initiatives

Peer-to-Peer Mutual Aid: Honoring Lived Experiences & Resilience

We know that surviving on the streets requires extraordinary resourcefulness, cooperation, and skills in forming and tending communities of mutual care.

H4A harnesses these skills, creating opportunities for self-advocacy, peer-based support, mutual problem-solving, and community building where members devise solutions built on personal experience and ingenuity. Collaborative work like this enhances mental wellbeing, community connectedness, public self-advocacy, collaboration, and understanding across our diverse communities. 

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