Welcome to the Members’ Area of the NACCOM website, a password-sensitive area dedicated to supporting and resourcing NACCOM members.
In this section you can learn about what membership of NACCOM includes for you and your organisation, as well as how to access resources, platforms and tools to help you get the most from your membership.
What’s in the Members’ Area:
Resources;
If you are experiencing problems when logging into the NACCOM Members’ Area, watch our helpful ‘how-to’ video. If you continue to have problems, please contact [email protected].
Library – a space for Members to access and share resources that other projects may find helpful. Members are invited to submit resources to the Library where, following approval, they can be made accessible to other users.
Library Submission – Submit resources to the library.
Webinars and Video Content – a space to share videos and webinars. For dates on upcoming webinars visit our Meetings and Conferences page.
Membership Update Details – a space to update the Project Directory information we hold on your organisation.
To view our full range of member and external events, meetings and conferences, please visit the Meetings and Conferences section of the website.
Information about;
Services we offer:
Our member-only Regional Hub meetings take place twice a year (January/February and June/July), bringing members together from across a region or neighbouring regions to: build relationships with each other; discuss challenges, trends and opportunities impacting their work; and hear more in-depth project case studies from NACCOM members and/or external projects.
The focus of Regional Hubs is generally more operational than strategic (although nothing is off the table and hubs are led by members’ concerns and priorities), whilst fortnightly member calls and Thematic Hubs (see below) offer opportunities for more strategic discussions. Issues raised in Regional Hubs may inform the development of subsequent Thematic Hubs, where we focus in more detail on a particular topic of relevance to members.
If you would like an upcoming Hub to focus on a specific topic, or if you are a member and would like to present on one of your organisation’s projects or experiences, please get in touch with one of our Network Development Coordinators:
➡️ Paul Catterall (Wales, Midlands, North East England and Scotland) [email protected]
➡️ Katie Fawcett (Yorkshire, North West England and Northern Ireland) [email protected]
➡️ Tom MacPherson (London, the South East, South West and East of England) [email protected]
Regional Hubs may be held online or in person.
Our member-only Thematic Hub meetings explore specific issues facing member projects in more depth. They are an opportunity for members to share and learn from one another’s experience and expertise in addressing a particular issue and to hear from/about projects that have found innovative solutions.
Thematic Hubs may have an operational or strategic focus and are informed by member discussions in Regional Hubs (see above), member calls and 1-to-1 conversations with members. Previous hubs have included hosting, housing, and Covid-19 risk management.
We aim to deliver at least one Thematic Hub every April, however other Thematic Hubs may be arranged on an ad hoc basis in response to policy or other external developments impacting member projects. For example, we held a Thematic Hub for members with hosting projects in response to the announcement of the Homes for Ukraine scheme.
Thematic Hubs are currently held online.
Our regular member calls are the best way for members to stay up-to-date on the strategic side of our work. They also provide an opportunity for members to discuss developments, challenges and trends affecting their services on a rolling basis. Member calls take place monthly on the first Wednesday of each month, from 1pm – 2pm.
The first 30 minutes of the session has a strategic focus, with NACCOM staff sharing policy, research and communications-related developments and opportunities. The second half is for members to discuss any updates concerning their own services and the wider context in which we’re working, including trends and general reflections.
A full list of member call dates can be found in the Meetings and Conferences section of our website.
Our Annual Conference, held every November, offers a chance for all our members, as well as external partners and stakeholders, to meet in person, network and build relationships. The Conference includes presentations on NACCOM’s achievements over the year, members and external stakeholders’ examples of good practice, as well as workshops. The Annual Conference is held in a different location each year, with priority given to accessible locations that can ensure attendance from as many people as possible.
NACCOM brings together good practice developed and disseminated over the years in collaboration with member organisations in the form of step-by-step guides, complemented by case studies showcasing particular projects as examples. Toolkits developed so far include our:
➡️ Updated Hosting Good Practice Guides (2022) in the context of Homes for Ukraine
In addition to toolkits, NACCOM often collaborates with partner organisations in conducting research on particular issues.
All the above resources can be found in the dedicated Resources section of our website.
On an ad hoc basis, NACCOM staff, particularly the Network Development Coordinators, may offer 1:1 support to a member organisation to help them to address particular challenges. This generally takes the form of information, advice and guidance on operational, governance or funding issues, e.g. we may help members to think through funding opportunities, including joint bids, as well as service development.
If members require 1:1 support, please contact the Network Development Coordinator in the relevant region. The Network Development Coordinators are:
➡️ Paul Catterall – Scotland, North East England, the Midlands and Wales – [email protected]
➡️ Katie Fawcett – Northern Ireland, North West England, and Yorkshire and Humberside – [email protected]
➡️ Tom MacPherson – London, the South, South East, South West and East of England – [email protected]
In most cases, developing solidarity and building relationships between member organisations occurs naturally across the network, but we are happy to help organisations to build these connections if requested, for example by organising visits or facilitating buddying and mentoring opportunities.
If members are interested in buddying and guidance opportunities, please contact the Network Development Coordinator in the relevant region. The Network Development Coordinators are:
➡️ Paul Catterall – Scotland, North East England, the Midlands and Wales – [email protected]
➡️ Katie Fawcett – Northern Ireland, North West England, and Yorkshire and Humberside – [email protected]
➡️ Tom MacPherson – London, the South, South East, South West and East of England – [email protected]
NACCOM has strong links with key journalists and national media outlets and is regularly asked to contribute to news stories on relevant issues. This can often include working with members and people with lived experience in the network to evidence specific issues. We send out media opportunities via the Google Group and at our regular member calls. We can also support members who are in need of advice around media work.
If you are interested in learning more about our media work, please contact [email protected].
As part of our work supporting members, NACCOM is able to arrange bespoke and ad hoc training and webinars that respond to specific issues, which usually arise from conversations at our Regional or Thematic Hubs. In recent years these have included Mental Health First Aid training, dealing with vicarious trauma, and anti-racist practice. Members are encouraged to suggest topics for training.
If you have an idea for a training course or webinar, please email us at [email protected].
We are aware of the important role that stable funding plays in enabling members to develop and maintain essential services, and we regularly take opportunities to influence and inform funders, particularly around the need for core funding.
Occasionally NACCOM receives funding that allows us to provide additional services that directly support members. Additionally, when we become aware of funding opportunities that are relevant to members, we share this information in our Google Group as well as in fortnightly member calls.
Opportunities to stay informed and engaged:
We share relevant policy, advocacy and campaigns information with members in our regular member calls (see above) and through a fortnightly Policy, Research and Advocacy email update, which is shared directly and also via our Google Group (see below). You can subscribe here.
This includes information about campaigns and research being led by NACCOM, as well as any coalition work that NACCOM is supporting, and provides an overview of sector campaigns that NACCOM members may also wish to support.
For more information about our policy, advocacy and campaigns work, please contact [email protected].
For an overview of our key events, campaigns and activities, you can also sign up to our monthly newsletter, which is sent out each month to our supporters. Subscribe here.
For more information about our newsletter, please contact [email protected].
The Annual Members’ Survey helps us to better understand and evidence the type of accommodation and support our members are providing across the UK, who the NACCOM network is supporting and what their needs are, and how responses to destitution are evolving each year. This vital information underpins our advocacy and policy work, providing valuable evidence of the scale and impact of destitution that helps us to shape campaigns that will push for change.
The Annual Members’ Survey goes live every June, with the data published at our Annual Conference and AGM in November.
For more information about our Annual Members’ Survey, please contact [email protected].
Platforms:
**Launching in January 2023**
The NACCOM Slack community is exclusively for NACCOM members and provides a dedicated space for people across the network to collaborate, share and learn from one another, as well as hear relevant updates from the NACCOM team. Launched in response to our Design Lab project, the Slack community is divided into different channels focusing on specific topics. Members are encouraged to join the channels that are most relevant to their work, and to consider which of their staff should engage with specific channels.
The below channels will be reviewed and added to depending on feedback from members as use of the Slack community evolves. We encourage members to join only the channels they feel are most relevant to their work, to ensure that information remains focussed.
A full induction for members will be available, as well as ongoing support from the NACCOM team, to ensure that everyone is able to access and use Slack effectively.
Available Slack channels:
➡️ Housing and Property Schemes; for members running, setting up – or simply interested in – housing projects.
➡️ Hosting; for members running, setting up – or simply interested in – hosting projects.
➡️ Policy, Research and Advocacy; for members engaged in – or interested in – policy, advocacy and campaigns connected to ending destitution amongst people with NRPF. As well as staff who specialise in policy, advocacy or campaigns work, we encourage all members with an interest in this area of work to join the channel.
➡️ Communications and Media Work; for members interested in media work, communications and messaging projects around destitution and refugee issues. As well as staff who specialise in communications work, we encourage all members with an interest in this area of work to join the channel.
Any staff in NACCOM member organisations are welcome to join our Google Group, and we encourage all member organisations to have at least one staff member signed up. The group is a space for members to ask questions, share with and learn from one another, and promote job vacancies, as well as for NACCOM to share information on internal and external events, reports, policy developments, media opportunities and anything else that may be useful for members.
As we transition to using Slack, the Google Group will continue to be used by the NACCOM team to share general info, but members are encouraged to use Slack to share/ask anything that relates to any of the Slack channel topics.
Use of the Google Group will be reviewed after the Slack Community has been operational for six months.
To be added to the Google group, please contact [email protected].
The public-facing area of our website also contains lots of useful information, including, among other things:
- Members directory – Filter members according to the services they provide, their location and NACCOM membership type.
- Resources – We have made available a number of good practice resources to support the development and management of housing and hosting schemes, as well as influential reports published by us or NACCOM members.