‘Reclaiming spaces…. Improving our physical surroundings in a psychologically informed environment (PIE)’.
10.06.2022: As I write this week’s PIE blog, as the lead for Psychologically Informed Environments (PIE), at the national youth homeless charity — Centrepoint, I have been reflecting back over the past two weeks, including the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Like many others, our London street had a party at the weekend, wherein we ‘reclaimed’ our road from motor vehicles and came together with our neighbours to celebrate 70 years of the current monarch. It was wonderful to prepare the street the day before together as a community, and then to see all the local children playing out together (something not usually possible due to traffic) during the party. The reclaimed street space ceased to be just a thoroughfare and instead it was a social space, occupied with music, dancing, food and drink, and even our very own, quintessentially English ‘Bake Off’ and ‘Raffle’ competitions! It was a wonderful afternoon, that was luckily squeezed in between rain showers! This highlighted to me the positive psychological impact of reclaiming our physical surroundings and spaces in order for our local community to come together and build neighbourhood relationships.
The importance of the physical environment in a psychologically informed environment or PIE is something that has been argued to be a key ‘ingredient’ in the creation of any PIE (e.g. Keats et al, 2012; Westminster Council, 2015) and something that I have previously reflected on in past PIE blogs (c.f. https://drhelenmiles.medium.com/the-impact-of-our-physical-environment-on-our-psychological-well-being-a-psychologically-3ae63b740dd2). However, it has again been a focus recently as I have had the pleasure of visiting several Centrepoint services over the past week or so to see recently completed work to improve the physical environment(s).
As part of our PIE journey in the organisation over the past few years, we have been focused on this area, through both our PIE informed planned maintenance programme across our Centrepoint owned properties and our local co-produced Physical Environment Fund across our often landlord owned supported accommodation services. The latter project fund has now distributed around £100K over the past 3 years to projects across all our operational regions (i.e. London, Manchester, Bradford, Barnsley & Sunderland) that have been suggested and implemented by staff and homeless young people. This fund has enabled often small, but not necessarily insignificant, improvements to the physical environment interiors of our services, designed and implemented by local staff in conjunction with the homeless young people that live within them.
One of these projects in Wandsworth had its ‘Grand Opening’ this week, which I had the pleasure of attending. This was the ‘Shed Project’ (named by the homeless young people in the service), that isn’t actually a ‘Shed’(!) but a large outbuilding in the garden of a service in South West London. This building had been neglected for many years, but had the potential with a relatively small amount of money to be refurbished to create a communal space for those that live and work in the service (as well as the wider organisation) for socialising, key-working or therapy sessions, training, reflective practice, and other events (see photos below). Staff and young people worked together to reclaim and design this previously redundant space, facilitated by the support of our Property and Maintenance Team, and it was wonderful to visit the finished ‘Shed’, which is already being utilised to the positive benefit of those that live and work in this supported accommodation service. I also reflected that this is a very positive example of how an idea can develop into a physical reality, with perseverance, which I hope will have a positive benefit on the psychological well-being of all those that now have the opportunity to benefit from this space in the future.
This project also highlighted to me the importance of considering how redundant spaces could be re-purposed to create something new. However, this concept of reclaiming or recycling spaces is not necessarily new. There are often limitations on space in homeless services, yet sometimes we can find solutions when we step back and reflect (as per a PIE!), and perhaps are willing to do something different. For example, in other Centrepoint services I have been supporting staff with other similar ideas albeit perhaps on a smaller scale. Often in discussions with staff, it has been possible to identify small spaces that for one reason or another have become ‘storage’ spaces or no one has thought it would be possible to use that space in a different way. Several of these such spaces (e.g. small rooms or larger ‘cupboards’) have now been cleared / sorted out and ‘reclaimed’ to be developed in something else such as a confidential key-working space or ‘chill out’ / relaxation / low stimulation space for young people. With just a bit of time and imagination, and perhaps a few items of furniture or wall decoration / stencils / art, these spaces are now being utilised differently and in a more psychologically informed manner.
Therefore, I would encourage all of us that work within homeless services to take a moment to walk around our buildings and reflect on how we are utilising the physical spaces within them. Can we refresh, review or modify something in order to change the physical environment we are working in? Are our communal areas for homeless young people (both indoors and outdoors) working to create a ‘sense’ of psychological safety or ‘home’ and/or being used to their maximum potential? What ideas do those that live and work in that physical environment have? How do we feel in those spaces? If they perhaps negatively effect our psychological well-being, why is this and what could we do to change this?
One simple but effective reflection is to consider the decoration of a space. A lovely example of this that I have visited in the past couple of weeks, was a mural art project in one of our London services, that has lifted an otherwise arguably depressing view of local social housing around a supported accommodation service to be something more colourful and interesting (see picture below). What was great about this project was that it was co-designed and painted by both the staff and homeless young people within the service thereby not only improving the physical environment, but also contributing to the sense of a ‘community’ within the project. The action of working together to create something was relationship building (another key aspect of any PIE) for those involved, so in this case the ‘process’ was just as psychologically important as the ‘outcome’. Therefore, if you are reading this blog and work in a Centrepoint service, I would encourage you to get in touch with our PIE team to discuss your ideas further and/or apply to this year’s PIE Physical Environment Fund, to be relaunched later this month.
This week I have also had the pleasure of returning to visit our Manchester teams, who after almost two years of being ‘homeless’, have now moved back into the refurbished Oldham Street delivery hub (see picture below showing the new mural painted by the young people and a local artist in the new drop in area). I have been involved with this project since I joined Centrepoint alongside both colleagues from across the organisation (e.g. Property, Fundraising, Engagement, Support & Housing) and our pro-bono designer; Daniella from www.spacepositive.co.uk. For further details of this project, see the previous PIE blog here about the process: https://drhelenmiles.medium.com/co-producing-the-physical-spaces-in-a-psychologically-informed-environment-changing-the-story-9fbb7c74bfb5. Therefore, although a few further touches are still being completed, it was wonderful to see the almost finished building that ensures that the space is both physically and psychologically safe for our Rough Sleeper, Homeless Prevention, Floating Support and Health teams working with homeless young people in Manchester.
Part of the old building in Oldham Street has also been ‘reclaimed’ (i.e. wasted space in the open atrium in the centre of the building) in order to enlarge the service (as the footprint of the building in the centre of Manchester cannot be expanded) and ensure that it is fit for purpose to continue to deliver our expanding services across the city. Of course, this project has been a significant project in terms of time and investment from Centrepoint, and we are extremely grateful to those donors and supporters that have made this possible and enabled us to continue to deliver a high quality service now matched by an equally high quality physical environment in line with PIE. It was already possible to notice the psychological change in staff working with the space during the reflective practice sessions, particularly in terms of the importance of staff (and homeless young people) believing that they are worth this investment and that they are of value.
Finally, on the theme of reclaiming spaces within the physical environment, I have also been learning more about another key project in Centrepoint over the past week — that of our Independent Living Scheme proposed as part of the solution to the lack of UK social housing (c.f. https://londonist.com/london/housing/homes-young-people-peckham-homelessness-centrepoint). As part of this project, the team are working with local authorities and developers to explore and ‘reclaim’ previously unused sites within London and Manchester, both cities with high-density housing and a lack of available affordable space. This project provides modular starter homes for homeless young people in employment or training as a first step to live independently. Key to this project is the ability to identify and develop locations that may otherwise be unused or underdeveloped, in order to make steps to provide housing; in other words ‘reclaiming’ spaces. One of the issues around the housing issue in the UK is a lack of space on a relatively small island with a growing population and a growing need for suitable housing for young people. Therefore, perhaps ‘reclaiming’ and ‘repurposing’ our physical spaces might be one solution to this issue and bring us closer to our 2037 strategic objective to #EndYouthHomelessness.
Of course, what it takes will be the imagination and the will, to reflect upon our physical environment further and I would argue that being a PIE organisation requires us to do this. Sometimes, we might not be able to undertake the most obvious solution (e.g. expansion) and may have to make the best of what we have, through ‘reclaiming’ and repurposing existing spaces that are no longer useful in their current form. I would also argue that this consideration of the physical spaces can also bring about positive psychological benefits, whether that be during the co-production process; the journey that creates spaces for relationship building, or because of the improved physical environment or ‘outcome’ at the end of the process. Consequently, rather than focusing just on what we can’t do within our physical environment, perhaps in order to make this part of our Centrepoint PIE successful, we might need to think about how we can make the best of what we already have. So, are we ready for the challenge?
