Pomorskie Forum na rzecz Wychodzenia z Bezdomności (PFWB) to międzysektorowe Partnerstwo podmiotów zajmujących się problematyką bezdomności. Ustanowione w celu ich integracji, wymiany myśli, idei i doświadczeń oraz kreowania i wspierania systemu polityki społecznej, aby skutecznie rozwiązywać problem bezdomności oraz łagodzić jego skutki.
General information
The Pomeranian Forum in Aid of Getting Out of Homelessness has been actively involved in a variety of research activities adopting empirical and desk research approach. It has resulted in a number of publications and research initiatives unprecedented in Poland. One of such initiatives is a research expert group, set up in 2007, which aims to turn into the Pomeranian Institute of Research on Homelessness.
Why do we need research in the sphere of homelessness? We believe that preventing and combating homelessness as well as minimizing its negative effects is impossible without the objective and profound knowledge on this problem. And the only way to gain this knowledge is through research.
Sociodemographic survey
The moment our society understands that helping the homeless is effective only when aimed at getting out of homelessness and social inclusion, will be the right moment to provide sufficient knowledge on homelessness. Creating an assistance system aimed at providing shelter to the homeless may be adequate – may reflect the needs of the homeless and be economically suitable – only when we know how many homeless people there are in a given region. This gives us an idea how many beds we need and who to address our help (men, women, older, young or sick people etc.) In order to see the scale of the problem and monitor any changes in the homeless sector, the Pomeranian Forum in Aid of Getting Out of Homelessness conducts sociodemographic surveys which provide the answer to this basic question – how many homeless people live in our province?
The first sociodemographic survey was conducted in 2001. Since then it has been conducted every two years.
Profile
Between November 2004 and March 2008 the Pomeranian Forum in cooperation with other PFWB partners conducted the project called Agenda of Homelessness – Standards for Active Return to Employment. One of the elements of this project was extensive interdisciplinary research on the population of the homeless in Trójmiasto. It resulted in publishing the Psycho- social Profile of Homeless Population in Tricity. Homelessness was discussed from three different points of view: pedagogy (quantitative research), sociology (qualitative research) and psychology.
Werbel
The Pomeranian Forum started Werbel demokracji – the campaign aimed at counteracting discrimination of the homeless in September 2008. Research focusing on social perception of this phenomenon and presenting homelessness in the media was one of the elements of this project. We wanted to see how the media talk about homelessness, how they present this problem and whether their image of homelessness is true or stereotypical.
Reports
PFWB cooperation results in a number of detailed reports on different aspects of homelessness and issues connected with this problem.
Specialist publications
In the first years of PFWB activity Forum co-published “W kręgu problematyki bezdomności polskiej”
Research group
Expert groups established in 2008 in the course of PFWB strategy development were designed to work on the strategy document in different thematic spheres and research was one of those spheres. Research group has meetings at least once every quarter and its main sphere of activity is PFWB research. The sociodemographic survey conducted in 2009 was the first important activity undertaken by this group.
Group members:
Research offer
PFWB research group acting under the aegis of the Pomeranian Institute of Research on Homelessness offers services in the sphere of homelessness.
Research activity is undertaken by people with research experience, who have conducted research projects in the field of homelessness and social exclusion for many years.
We conduct interdisciplinary research combining sociology, psychology and pedagogy.
