European Conferences
SMES Europa regularly organises European conferences and seminars that bring together practitioners, researchers, policy-makers and people with lived experience from many countries to reflect on the intersection between mental health, homelessness and extreme social exclusion. These events provide a structured space for exchanging practices, presenting research and debating policy developments, while also giving visibility to innovative local initiatives and the voices of those directly affected. By rotating locations across different European cities and working closely with local partners, SMES Europa’s conferences help to build a shared European understanding of challenges and solutions, and to translate this knowledge into concrete recommendations for services and public authorities.
Webinars
SMES Europa is developing a cycle of webinars on homelessness and mental health to provide a regular, accessible forum for European exchange. Each webinar will bring together practitioners, researchers, policy-makers and people with lived experience to explore key questions at the intersection of mental distress, trauma, housing exclusion and service provision. By combining short expert inputs with concrete case studies and discussion, the series aims to strengthen shared understanding, highlight promising practices from different countries and support the development of more integrated, person-centred responses to homelessness and mental health across Europe.
Attachment, Trauma, Homelessness
Date: 16/10/2025
SMES Europa invites you to the first in a series of free webinars dedicated to key challenges in homelessness and complex social exclusion.
Adopting a ” Person First approach”, the series will examine how services can be better aligned with the real needs of people experiencing homelessness — with a particular focus on mental health support.
This inaugural session explores the link between early attachment, psychological trauma, and homelessness, offering valuable insights for professionals and practitioners in the field.
SPEAKERS:
•Silvia Raimondi, psychologist, founding member of SMES Italia, Roma, member of SMES Europa
•Elias Barreto, psychologist at Julio de Matos Psychiatric Hospital, Lisbon and member of SMES Europa
Rights and Wrongs
Date: 27/02/2026
SMES Europa is happy to introduce you to our second webinar in this series of seminars online, contextualized using concepts that have appeared in different events organized by SMES-Europa during the last years. These productions will finally come together as part of a conference that will be held at the end of 2026. In this occasion we will try to confront and mediate two very different positions widely extended in our daily work.
On the one hand we will look at our understanding of psychiatric disorders as a biological anomaly and therefore needing certain supports in the community for the “patient” to survive safely, being critical with community alternatives which do not “enforce” drug treatment and explaining the need in occasions of compulsory actions against the persons will.
On the other side we have positions which talk about the myth of chemical cure, challenging assumptions held by mainstream psychiatry about nature of psychiatric disorders and effect of psychiatric interventions. The need to understand the person as living in society and the relationship with others and introducing the citizenship concept, with views related to rights, responsibilities, roles, resources and relationships.
We hope it is of your interest, and will be looking forward to your participation
Speakers:
João Gama Marques: neuropsychiatrist and psychopharmacologist, professor of biological psychiatry, clinical researcher and volunteer behind the Homeless Outreach Psychiatric Engagement for Lisboa (HOPE 4 Lisboa), Portugal, European Union.
Francisco José Eiroa-Orosa: Reader/Associate Professor at the University of Barcelona, member of the Advisory Council for Mental Health and Addictions of the Catalan Government. Research focused on mental health professional awareness and service-user participation.
Moderator:
Victor Soto: psychiatrist, board member of SMES-Europa and working front line in Barcelona with people that live in the street with a mental health problem