‘Hap-PIE’ Christmas: A year of gratitude from the Psychologically Informed Environment (PIE) Team at Centrepoint’…

16.12.2022: Writing this week’s PIE blog, as the Lead for Psychologically Informed Environments (PIE), at the national youth homeless charity; Centrepoint, I cannot believe another year has already passed and we are almost into 2023! I have previously written PIE blogs reflecting on Christmas specifically (c.f. see PIE Blog here: https://drhelenmiles.medium.com/tis-the-season-a-psychologically-informed-reflection-on-christmas-e7befb785790), so for my final PIE blog of 2022, I wanted to do something slightly different. This year, we have celebrated our 3rd year of our PIE journey within the organisation, with a wider evaluation of our PIE due to be completed early next year. We have offered almost a thousand reflective practice sessions this year across our frontline services, trained hundreds of staff on our PIE day and had over thousand staff attendees join different PIE module training sessions across a wide range of psychologically informed topics. We have allocated tens of thousands of pounds of funding to our supported accommodation services for co-produced young people and staff uplifts to the physical environment to create a ‘home’ for the homeless young people we support, and influenced policy, procedure and strategy across the organisation.

However, one of the best moments of the past week has been hearing the gratitude expressed towards the Centrepoint PIE team at the recent Senior Executive Team (SET) team national roadshow(s). A range of different colleagues from across the organisation fed back some wonderful positive comments about all the members of the PIE team and the support that we have offered staff through reflective practice and training sessions over the past year. Therefore, as we close out 2022 and move into 2023, I wanted to take a few moments in this week’s PIE blog, to express my gratitude to all those who have contributed to our Centrepoint PIE journey over the past 12 months. It feels apt at Christmas time, to stop and reflect, and to be grateful for what we have achieved and express gratitude to those within the organisation that have helped us to achieve it.

Firstly, as I look back across 2022, I would like to express my own sincere gratitude to my brilliant PIE team colleagues that have made all of the above possible. It has not always been an easy road this year, with external and internal systemic challenges at times. However, we have tried to hold on to our team ethos of keeping in mind a psychologically informed, reflective and evidence based approach at all times with a focus on building relationships to maximise positive outcomes for homeless young people and the staff that support them. It is such a pleasure as a Manager to hear positive feedback about the work of your team, so I would like to take a moment to thank each of them for their hard work and their often ‘above and beyond’ approach over the past year. Starting in the North, Jess has been an entrusted and ‘safe pair of hands’ in delivering our PIE offer and supporting staff across the Bradford, Barnsley and Sunderland region despite the challenges inherent in such a large geographical area with a wide variety of different types of service and different staff groups. I am also excited to announce that in early 2023, we have a brilliant new psychologist; Jo, joining the PIE team to support our Manchester services. Although I will personally miss my monthly trips to see the Manchester frontline staff, I am happy that they will have more support to manage the highly complex homeless young people they support in the city than I can offer them currently.

Meanwhile, down in our London area Sophia has been wonderful in supporting the frontline teams in conjunction with Caroline (prior to her sabbatical) and myself. There are over 45 services, which means a lot of travelling every day for all of us, but the passion and commitment that they both have demonstrated to different teams has shown through in all their work with staff. I have also had the pleasure of working alongside my first educational psychologist and the newest member of the team; Marc. He was previously a volunteer at Centrepoint, and even in the short time since he has joined us, has already started to make a positive impact in his role supporting our jobs and education team(s); CP works. For me this completes the PIE offer to ensure we have a psychologically informed approach to ensuring we enable every young person to have ‘a home and a job’. Finally, I have to highlight Adelle, our PIE trainer. Although technically not in our PIE team (rather in the Skills Development Team), we have ‘adopted her’ and honestly, we could not do without her delivering the vast majority of our PIE training offer through our PIE modules as well as her fantastic sense of humour and ‘can do’ attitude!

Working with the staff across the wider organisation has also been a particular pleasure of mine over the past year. I really cannot express my gratitude enough to all my colleagues working in frontline services, who really are an amazing group of people. I am always welcomed into services when I visit, and I often witness really positive work being undertaken with the homeless young people they support, regardless of how challenging the circumstances. There is such a genuine passion amongst so many of our staff to support young people to move on from their experience of homelessness and fulfil their potential in society, that I want to thank each and every one of them for their work and dedication. Without ‘our key-workers’, whether this is the Support & Housing, CP Works, CP Health or Helpline Team(s), and the psychologically informed relationships that they form with the young people, positive change would be harder or perhaps not even possible to achieve. ‘Optimising’ our direct delivery in this psychologically informed way ensures that many vulnerable young people in the UK can break the cycle of homelessness that persists in to adulthood with all the associated consequences to physical and psychological well-being. Many of these staff will be taking time away from their family or friends to keep our supported accommodation services open over the Christmas period and ensure that the young people resident in them have a positive experience of the festivities, perhaps for the first time in their lives.

My colleagues working in the wider support services within the organisation are also invaluable, many of whom work behind the scenes to support our frontline services, but also to work towards our 2037 strategy to #EndYouthHomelessness. Being PIE lead has enabled me to get to know and work alongside many brilliant colleagues, all experts in their own area, and from whom I have learnt so much over the past year. For example, learning about the critical role of fundraising and events from these teams during my experience of the recent Centrepoint ‘SLEEPOUT’ (c.f. see PIE blog here: https://drhelenmiles.medium.com/sleep-out-string-and-a-strong-coffee-psychologically-informed-fundraising-73cbe50d5cd7). I have also worked with the policy team to carry out research, and learn more about their vital campaigning work to be a voice for homeless young people in the UK (c.f. see PIE blog here: https://drhelenmiles.medium.com/returning-home-what-should-we-demand-of-our-next-prime-minister-10f7f7ca07b9) and I have developed my skills with our media and communications team in how to ‘amplify’ our Centrepoint PIE approach both internally and externally. Discussions with our compliance team have also been fruitful, and I am grateful to them for their openness and willingness to review and revise Centrepoint policies and procedures to make them more psychologically informed.

I must also highlight the critical role and support from the property and procurement team(s) this past year, without whom many of our PIE changes to the physical environment would not have been possible (c.f. see PIE blog here: https://drhelenmiles.medium.com/reclaiming-spaces-83f9347ae78f). Moreover, I am grateful to colleagues in the Independent Living Team, whose housing model is very promising for the future as part of our strategy to #EndYouthHomelessness and whose approach still retains key elements of PIE, whilst representing an expansion of traditional PIE from supported accommodation services (c.f. PIE blog here: https://drhelenmiles.medium.com/a-psychologically-informed-environment-pie-approach-to-living-independently-778c378f4578). Moreover, as per any key part of PIE, I also want to thank the data team whose help with research and their support in highlighting the need for data-driven decision making and the challenges of measuring psychologically informed impact, all of which has been invaluable this year (c.f. PIE blog here: https://drhelenmiles.medium.com/measuring-positive-changes-in-a-psychologically-informed-environment-is-a-successful-outcome-9c0ddc62809).

It has also been a pleasure to work with the rest of Skills Development and Volunteering Team this year, as we had aimed to put staff training back on the agenda post pandemic, and ensure that our workforce has the skills, knowledge and support needed whether they are a paid member of staff or a volunteer (c.f. see PIE blog here: https://drhelenmiles.medium.com/the-value-of-volunteering-in-a-psychologically-informed-environment-pie-7f59da55a5c4). In addition, our team has also been working on a very exciting pre-16 ‘prevention’ pilot service in conjunction with the partnerships team, something that hopefully will bring us closing to ending youth homelessness by preventing as many vulnerable young people from getting in this position in the first place.

I would also like to express gratitude to the Human Resources Team in assisting with recruitment within my team, as well as being part of wider PIE conversations and actions within our People Strategy, and Wellbeing / Inclusion work streams. And not forgetting the finance and information technology team(s), who as well as their vital role in the wider organisation, I am very grateful on a personal level for having tolerated with such patience my random questions and emails around budgets and technology issues, neither of which are my forte(!). Finally, I would like to thank the Senior Executive Team (SET), in particular Adam and Sally, who have been overseeing the PIE team I 2022 and advocating strongly for the importance of the work we do and the resources we need to do it successfully. Neither are psychologists by background, but have been open to listening and learning about a PIE approach within the homeless sector, and have also given their time to assist me in thinking more strategically about how to position PIE within the wider organisation.

In conclusion, when reflecting back over the past year there has not been a team in Centrepoint that PIE has not collaborated with in our vision to make the organisation psychologically informed, and I am sincerely thankful to every one of them for their interest, support and work to achieve this end. All the different teams in Centrepoint are key pieces in the ‘puzzle’ that is working to end youth homelessness, not only for the current young people that we support but also for future generations of young people in the UK. Whilst I know our Centrepoint PIE journey is far from over, I am proud of what the PIE team has achieved in conjunction with colleagues across the whole organisation and I am excited to be part of that ongoing journey in 2023. In the meantime, I want to say I hope all readers of this blog have a very ‘Hap-pie Christmas’ and a wonderful New Year. See you all in 2023…