Over the past few years, Jim Winship, an associate professor of social work at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, noted the following concerns:

• many (or most) shelters are fairly unconnected with sources of training or information;
• many workers in shelters don't have a social work or equivalent background; and
• perhaps most importantly, there is great expertise out there that rarely gets shared with the larger community

Dr. Winship believed that technology offered some opportunities to address these concerns and thus created the website "HomeWords." It's designed for direct service workers in shelters and is intended to serve as a conduit for sharing expertise and for putting the integration of service provision and advocacy on the front burner.

It is highly informative as well as interactive. Visitors to the site will find a variety of topics to explore: Helping Clients Plan for the Future, Advocacy and Service Provision, Parenting While Homeless, Starting Points in Working with People Who are Homeless, and Perspectives on Shelter Life from Residents and Staff. Within each of these major areas, there are subcategories, also chock-full of helpful ideas. There is also a section on sharing Expertise and Questions, which allows guests to post questions and offer ideas that have worked for them. Dr. Winship stated in an interview that he hopes the website will become an electronic gathering point where shelter workers across the country can share knowledge and expertise.

The website has a guestbook that Dr. Winship will use to create an electronic mailing list for a newsletter that he hopes to develop soon. The newsletter will focus on the latest news of interest to shelter workers and will help put critical issues in front of those who are best poised to deal with them.

Those who are not experts, please pay a visit soon to Homewords - there's something for everyone who works in the field of homelessness.