Wally Czech
The CAEH is pleased to announce Wally Czech will join the alliance as our Director of Training. Wally will lead the alliance’s new Training & Technical Assistance program – a mission based, non-profit training and technical assistance consultancy developed to provide on the ground training and support to communities and front line workers.
Wally is a recognized expert and leader in Housing First and ending homelessness with over 15 years’ experience in counselling psychology. Wally joins the CAEH from the City of Lethbridge, Alberta where he was the City’s Housing First Specialist for the past five years.
While at the city Wally was instrumental in the development of the city’s Housing First System of Care, program development for several Housing First programs, providing clinical and operational support to funded projects and leading the development of the city’s Housing First Standards of Practice. Wally has provided consultation and training to several communities in their efforts to develop or enhance their own Housing First models and was a contracted trainer for t3 (Think, Teach, and Transform) from the U.S.
He will be based out of Lethbridge where he lives with his wife and three children. Wally starts with the CAEH on May 2nd and can be reached at wally@caeh.ca
In April, the CAEH took over Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) Housing First Training and Technical Assistance program. Expanding on the MHCC program, the CAEH will employ a faculty of expert trainers working in agencies or private practice across Canada to provide training.
The mission of the new program is to facilitate and accelerate the shift to Housing First and ending homelessness in Canada by providing high quality, accessible, affordable, evidence based training and technical assistance.
Services offered by the CAEH will include:
- Initial core community training to introduce communities and organizations to Housing First
- Customized Housing First training and technical assistance providing tailored onsite and remote training and advisory support
- Developmental evaluation and fidelity assessment to assess a program’s progress toward Housing First fidelity and provide quality improvement advice
- Professional development on technical skills relating to Housing First (for example harm reduction and motivational interviewing)
- Brokered consulting services connecting communities to Canadian and international experts on a range of needs from client prioritization and assessment to system planning for communities working to end homelessness
- Open source toolkits and training curriculum that can be freely used and shared by individuals, agencies and communities across Canada
The CAEH is partnering with Pathways to Housing National and the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness to support the program and develop new training content including new modules for the Canadian Housing First Toolkit.
