‘Connection, Relationships and PIEs …’
13.12.19: This week, I had the pleasure of attending the RSI (Rough Sleeping Initiative) Psychologically Informed Environments (PIE) 2019 conference in Southampton, UK. This brought together a variety of professionals from statutory and voluntary/charity services, commissioners and ‘experts by experience’ (i.e. ex-homeless individuals) for a networking and learning event to discuss the development of PIE in the homeless sector. Despite the long drive to Southampton, which made me very glad to come home to the ‘roof over my head’ by the end of the day, it was a very thought provoking and inspiring day (c.f. #WhyPIE for more details, thoughts and content from the day).
One of the many themes of the day, which covered topics as diverse as systems change, trauma and self-compassion, that I have been thinking about most this week, is that of ‘Connection’. Psychologists from whatever background or therapeutic orientation all agree on one key thing, that human beings need relationships. As one Expert by Experience speaker noted, it is critical in escaping homelessness that you “find a connection with someone that gives a s**t about you”. The PIE Good Practice Guide (i.e. Keats et al, 2012: https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/340022/1/Good%2520practice%2520guide%2520-%2520%2520Psychologically%2520informed%2520services%2520for%2520homeless%2520people%2520.pdf) argues that relationships are at the heart of any PIE, noting specifically that; ‘A focus on managing relationships is perhaps at the heart of what makes a psychologically informed environment different. In this model, relationships are seen as a principal tool for change, and every interaction between staff and clients is an opportunity for development and learning’.
However, making that connection and forming a trusting relationship can often be challenging for the homeless young people that come into Centrepoint services, because of their past traumatic experiences and disrupted early attachment experiences, which they carry forward into their interactions with those that are now trying to support and help them. It is a paradox that sometimes the individuals that need our help and support the most, are often those whom find accessing and engaging in that support the most difficult. Young people in our PIEineers group, co-producing the Centrepoint PIE recently summarised this very eloquently, noting both that “Building relationships is like building a home, it takes time, work and dedication” and that “trusting relationships take time and space to build, especially if we’ve been hurt before”.
For example, a recent Centrepoint report, not only highlighting the very high rates of young people facing homelessness this Christmas; over 20,000 (c.f. https://centrepoint.org.uk/media/3776/xmasreport.pdf), also highlighted that almost two thirds of the young people accommodated by Centrepoint lost a place to live due to family breakdown. Wider evidence also suggests that these damaged relationships or lack of connections are the main driver of youth homelessness across the UK, with an estimated 52 per cent of 16–25s presenting as homeless last year due to parents or others not willing to accommodate them (c.f. https://centrepoint.org.uk/media/3069/making-homeless-young-people-count.pdf).
In our Centrepoint PIE we acknowledge that the relationships between our young people and staff, particularly the ‘frontline’ keyworkers are the most important relationships in the organisation, particularly when we are working to bring about positive change for homeless young people to reach their potential of a ‘home and a job’ to #changethestory. One of the other topics of the PIE conference this week focused on how we should endeavour to build these critical relationships and connections, and how it is critical that we actively avoid engaging in and prevent practices that may ‘re-traumatise’ the individual, albeit perhaps unintentionally (c.f. https://www.homeless.org.uk/sites/default/files/site-attachments/TIC%20PIE%20briefing%20March%202017_0.pdf). It is therefore important that we recognise the impact of past trauma upon the current relationship (e.g. in terms of how they person may think, feel or act towards us) and promote recovery / empowerment within the relationships and connections we build.
Specifically, it is now generally accepted (e.g. Homeless Link, 2017) that services need to be ‘trauma aware’, work to establish physical and psychological safety for those that are accessing them, and give opportunities within relationships to rebuild control through choices and empowerment. It is also important that staff adopt a ‘Strengths based approach’ in working with homeless young people to build their resilience and coping mechanisms for the future. As reflected in the PIE conference this week, too often we focus on needs and risk, which whilst important may also unintentionally pathologise and segregate the young person further if this dominates our approach. Pat McArdle (CEO, Mayday Trust) argued that this “art of fixing” focuses attention on the ‘problem’ and away from the ‘homeless young person’, and ignores the fact that “people are more than the sum of their problems”.
The importance of focusing on strengths in building relationships also reminded me of a conversation I had this week with one of the Volunteer Co-ordinators about new role(s) currently being developed in Centrepoint, which fit well with these PIE or trauma informed principles. In addition to key workers within services, Centrepoint is utilising volunteer ‘coaches’ from all walks of life to match with young people and offer them another opportunity to build connections and relationships in the ‘normal world’ outside of service provision. These coaches are trained in strength-based approaches and will bring these as well as their personal life experiences to support the young people in a flexible ‘person centred’ manner. Consequently, our future Centrepoint PIE staff training, will also have strengths based approaches to building connections and relationships incorporated in it.
Finally, when reflecting about relationships and connections, I would also note that these are just as important between staff, as they are between staff and homeless young people. In fact, this ability to support each other and enrich the strengths of our teams is critical to build resilience, and ensure a ‘collective care’ (Reynolds, 2019: https://vikkireynoldsdotca.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/2019-context-uk-zone-of-fabulousness-reynolds.pdf). Specifically it is argued that ‘collective care invites us to build each other up, work in solidarity … [and] … see our sustainability as a collective project’ (Reynolds, 2019; p38) and that ‘we need to create relationships of respect and dignity and create cultures of accountability, appreciation and critique, to catch each other’.
The pertinent question posed at this week’s conference was; “When did we last praise each other for a job well done?” with a key message being that what underlies ‘connections’ and relationship building was compassion, gratitude and understanding. I will personally be aiming to do this more in the future, especially thanking all those individuals in Centrepoint who have contributed to our PIE journey so far, without whom none of this would be possible. We still have some way to go, but at the PIE conference this week, I was reminded of how far we have already come…
