RJA

 Mental health and housing : joined up thinking for 21st Century  community mental health ....   
The Development programme
 Recent RJA projects and activities
RJA’s activity over the past ten years has been centred on five principal areas of research, practice and policy development.


1.
We have worked with mainstream (“general needs”) housing services, to identify fruitful areas for improved communication, co-operation, co-working and co-ordination with mental health services, as identified in the “At Home? study report.



2.
We have worked with local mental health services, to help develop a local mental health accommodation needs analysis, and from this, a whole person, whole systems mental health accommodation strategy.




3.
We have worked with the new developing services for individuals with personality disorder - or, as we would now prefer, “complex trauma” - to identify the basis for partnership with housing support services, especially in  homelessness resettlement services. The concept of a “psychologically informed environment” arose originally out of this work
.

4.
We have worked with the  National Social Inclusion Programme of NIMHE/CSIP and a variety of research agencies to identify an achievable research agenda, to develop the evidence base for new policy and practice developments in mental health and housing at local, regional and national level.



5.
We have worked with the Royal College of Psychiatrists and others in the Community of Communities on a project to define and evaluate “enabling environments”, including the kind of “psychologically informed environments that the
Practice exchange
In our view, however, probably the most pressing need currently remains the development of an effective communication medium which will allow scattered examples of positive and innovative practice in inter-agency development to identify and communicate with each other. In the absence of central direction, such a communication channel would be an essential service to local commissioners, service users and providers. Our original proposals for a web-based practice exchange network are outlined here.  
This work will culminate in the publishing of an entirely new and fully interactive website, the Mental Health and Housing website, in the summer of 2011. See RJA news for up-dates on this development.

An article on “At Home”, published in Mental Health Today, has a useful summary of key findings for a frontline readership. See exec summary and key messages on this site for a still briefer account.

 

A further article with an update on the implications of the “At Home?” findings in the light of the new local government framework; a free-to-view  copy appears in the  publications  section.

An extended article from the special edition of “Housing with Care and Support” explains in detail the practical implications for frontline services.   

 

A subsequent article in the publications section explains the continuing need for, and wider potential in, gathering data on service users’ housing needs and circumstances.

 

 

 

 

 

This culminated in the issuing of new guidance on meeting the psychological and emotional needs of homeless people, (See: Policy & Guidance; also several articles on personality disorder and “complex trauma” in the Publications and Thinkpieces & reviews sections)

For NSIP we produced a comprehensive  knowledge review, an analysis of existing datasets for social inclusion outcomes in housing, and development of good practice markers for the NSIP bridging practices database. Subsequently we have contributed evidence for New Horizons, the Marmot review of inequalities, and recent Department of Health guidance on  public health.

Arguably RJA’s most ambitious project to date (and undertaken purely on a pro bono basis), the enabling environments initiative seeks to find an over-aching set of principles to support health-promotion environments in a wide range of settings, from hospitals and schools to prisons, workplaces and housing developments.

Top: The relative sterility of the out-patients clinic environment contrasts with the vibrancy -for good or ill - of  life outside.
Right: The image of happy, thriving community is, sadly, only an image.
Centre. For many, conditions of poverty, even squalor, may nevertheless retain a sense of togetherness that is signally lacking in many modern urban townscapes.
Left: The potential contribution of housing design to a revived sense of social life is apparent.