This workshop session will be a roundtable discussion with individuals from the Supportive Housing Network of New York (The Network), Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH), the Bridge and RiseBoro Community Partnerships about a NYC-based initiative called The Network's Safety & Wellbeing Training Series & Community of Practice (CoP). The initiative was born from a series of intensive services roundtables with staff and tenants from the Network's network of supportive housing agency members throughout New York City and State, during which stakeholders shared about the very acute needs in the supportive housing sector related to safety and wellbeing of staff and tenants, as well as the challenges of equipping a social services, maintenance, and security workforce who often come in with little experience in best practices related to de- escalating potentially violent incidents and conflict, providing trauma informed support to individuals in crisis, and utilizing a harm reduction approach in response to substance use/overdose and chronic physical and behavioral health needs.

From these discussions and with the support of funding from Helmsley Charitable Trust, and an Advisory Committee of staff from member agencies which convened from December 2023 through March 2024, the Network identified trauma informed care, de-escalation and crisis prevention, harm reduction, and transformative justice as key areas for capacity building, selected training partners from within their membership, and developed a model for monthly broadly attended Zoom trainings as well as smaller, follow- up CoP sessions attended by key staff at participating agencies committed to engaging in ongoing implementation of these best practices at their organizations. This Roundtable Discussion will be moderated by The Network, who will provide the impetus for, and overview of the Training Series & Community of Practice and facilitate further discussion with a trainer who facilitated a de-escalation training and CoP (CSH) two staff members at the Bridge, one participating in the CoP and another the advisory committee on how they implemented learnings, specifically post-crisis debriefs, at their organization, as well as another CoP participant from RiseBoro on their experience within the cohort and their leadership working towards implementing lessons learned from the entire series.

Key Discussion Points include:

• The development, facilitation and participation experiences of the Safety & wellbeing Training Series and CoP
• Key elements for a reproducible model for creating safer and healthier environments in supportive housing
• The importance of equipping staff with the skills and tools to promote safety, wellbeing and improved morale in supportive housing
• The benefits of a CoP model for fostering cross-agency connection and collaboration and support the practical implementation of best practices
• The incredible value of staff trainers partnering with program participants in the development and provision of trainings designed to help staff provide skilled and contextualized services