increasingly-scarce resources and target- driven service provision, a recent study has found hope can be fostered in practices that connect workers with their value systems (Watson et al., 2019). Project workers actively resisted systemic disconnection through generously giving time and emotional support to each other; engaging in free-fl owing dialogue about the highs and lows of relationships with service users. These fi ndings speak to the work of Vikki Reynolds (2011) who posits solidarity as a means of fostering hope within divisive power structures. They stress that hope can be created, enacted and sustained within relationships between practitioners and service users. For residents themselves, hope proved
a powerful, but fragile construct. Research exploring the experiences of men who have moved through multiple hostels found that, although residents desired to move forward, they often lacked the support and resources to do so (Westaway et al., 2017). In this context, trusting relationships allowed hope to grow and be maintained, through developing a shared language, ‘scaff olding’ support and celebrating ‘small wins’. In this way practitioners supporting service users can maintain hope even when individuals cannot. In line with the psychologically-informed
ethos, environments which prioritise trusting relationships between those providing services and those using services are contexts in which hope can grow. Weingarten (2010) explains the necessary relational nature of this: people need a compassionate other to facilitate hope and growth. These relationships can only fl ourish though staff being provided with a refl ective space in which both hope and hopelessness can co-exist (Flaskas, 2007): a refl ective space through which the wider political and economic context of people’s lives are acknowledged.
What can we learn from the movement?
There is an energy, hope and creativity
within the movement. Not all homelessness services draw on a psychologically- informed framework, although many do and there is certainly a collective movement towards such environments that is being led by the homeless sector and supported by commissioners. Placing an individual’s diffi culties and social deprivation within a psychologically-
Context 164, August 2019
and trauma-informed framework of understanding can function as an act of empowerment. For services users familiar with often-medicalised mental health services, coming to understand themselves as survivors, with a clear narrative about why their diffi culties have arisen, is a political act and serves to remove some individual responsibility and blame. For practitioners, environments
that prioritise relationship-building and support them to refl ect and think psychologically about their work, provide a welcome contrast from the pressure experienced in more task-focused services. Furthermore, narratives of hope can off er a sustaining antidote to those familiar with working in a fragmented system, competing for resources. Community-based partnerships
between the homelessness sector and systemically-informed practitioners may be one way to both further develop the innovative practice in the third sector and disseminate this knowledge within mainstream health and social-care services. As Sweeney (2016) talks about in relation to trauma-informed approaches, to create change we need a ‘critical mass’. We need solidarity.
References Afuape, T. (2011) Power, Resistance and Liberation in Therapy with Survivors of Trauma: To Have our Hearts Broken. East Sussex: Routledge. Fitzpatrick, S., Pawson, H., Bramley, G., Wilcox, S., Watts, B. & Wood, J. (2018) The Homelessness Monitor: England 2018. Institute for Social Policy, Environment: University of New South Wales. Flaskas, C. (2007) Holding hope and hopelessness: Therapeutic engagements with the balance of hope. Journal of Family Therapy, 29: 186-202. Homeless Link, (2017) Support for Single Homeless People in England: Annual Review 2017. London: Homeless Link. Homelessness Reduction Act (2017) The Homelessness Reduction Act. London: UK Parliament. Hopper, E.K., Bassuk, E.L. & Olivet, J. (2010) Shelter from the storm: Trauma-informed care in homelessness services settings. The Open Health Services and Policy Journal, 3: 80-100. Johnson, R. & Haigh, R. (2010) Social psychiatry and social policy for the 21st century – new concepts for new needs: The ‘psychologically- informed environment’. Mental Health and Social Inclusion, 14: 30-35. Johnstone, L. & Boyle, M. (2018) The Power Threat Meaning Framework: Towards the Identifi cation of Patterns in Emotional Distress, Unusual Experiences and Troubled or Troubling Behaviour, as an Alternative to Functional Psychiatric Diagnosis. Leicester: British Psychological Society. Macintyre, A., Ferris, D., Gonçalves, B. & Quinn, N. (2018) What has economics got to do with it? The impact of socioeconomic factors on
mental health and the case for collective action. Palgrave Communications, 4: 1-5. McGrath, L., Griffi n, V. & Mundy, E. (2015) The Psychological Impact of Austerity: A Briefi ng Paper. London: Psychologists Against Austerity. Marmot, M., Allen, J., Goldblatt, P. et al. (2010) Fair Society, Healthy Lives: Strategic Review of Health in England Post 2010. London: Marmot Review Team. National Audit Offi ce (2017) Homelessness: Third Report of Session 2017-2019. United Kingdom: Department for communities and Local Government. Pascale, C. (2005) There’s no place like home: The discursive creation of homelessness. Cultural Studies - Critical Methodologies, 5: 250- 268. Reynolds, V. (2011) Resisting burnout with justice-doing. International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, 4: 27-45. Seager, M. (2011) Homelessness is more than houselessness: A psychologically-minded approach to inclusion and rough sleeping. Mental Health and Social Inclusion, 15: 183-189. Shelter (2008) Good Practice Briefi ng: Housing First. London: Shelter. Retrieved 02/10/2018 from
http://england.shelter.org.uk/__data/assets/ pdf_fi le/0008/145853/GP_ Briefi ng _Housing_ First.pdf [Accessed 10/06/19]. Smail, D. (2005) Power, Interest and Psychology Elements of a Social Materialist Understanding of Distress. Manchester, UK: PCCS Books. Sweeney, A., Clement, S., Filson, B. & Kennedy, A. (2016) Trauma-informed mental healthcare in the UK: What is it and how can we further its development? Mental Health Review Journal, 21: 174-192. Watson, C., Nolte, L., & Brown, R. (2019) Building connection against the odds: Project workers relationships with people experiencing homelessness. Housing, Care and Support. (In submission) Weingerten, K. (2010) Reasonable hope: Construct, clinical implications and supports. Family Process, 49: 5-25. Westaway, C., Nolte, L., & Brown, R. (2017) Developing best practice in psychologically informed environments. Housing, Care and Support, 20: 19-28.
Rachel Brown is a clinical psychologist specialising in developing psychologically- informed environments in both housing and mental health services. Email:
rachel@homelesscp.org
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Political PIEs: Learning from frontline housing services
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