Search

The rigid linear model of community mental health care in specialist temporary accommodation in Rome failed to deliver the progress in service user outcomes. A radical review and co-production exercise by staff, service users and relatives commissioned a flexible recovery-based model that better met the needs of people in Rome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new local government performance framework, in combination with the move towards greater personalisation in services, creates a radically new funding environment for housing with care and support. From the Public Service Agreement (PSA) on achieving settled accommodation for individuals at risk of exclusion, through to the impact of local joint strategic needs asessments and individual budgets, the principles and mechanisms of the new joint commissioning culture create more opportunities for providers to articulate the needs of the client group served, and to assert the case for more joined-up and responsive services. This may require different skills and new styles of leadership at local level, and providers who have become adept at being competitors may need to re-discover the skills of partnership. Meanwhile, new social exclusion policy frameworks are emerging for supported accommodation, which can support moves away from institutional care for those with mental health problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence from a variety of sources indicates that there is a correlation between environment, support structures and behavioural response for people with complex needs which affects the quality of life in living environments. As part of the shift from institutional living to community-based options, an inclusive approach, working on a theoretical and practice-based response, was established. The aim of the project was to achieve an inclusive package of support while encouraging development of individual skills of daily living, in a flexible and interactive environment. During the course of the project, 39 purpose-built housing units were established using the approach described, and they are currently the subject of evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes a shared ownership scheme developed by Advance Housing and Support so that people who have experienced mental health difficulties could have the choice to own their own home. Jennifer Barrett, Hilary Caldicott and Trevor Sasar De Sain have all been involved in Own Home - one as the project manager and the other two as shared owners with the scheme - and here describe what it was like from the inside, what worked and what didn't, and the impact of housing on people's experience of social exclusion and the accompanying loss of hope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Social Exclusion Unit's report on mental health, published in the summer of 2004, had surprisingly little to say about housing. But behind the scenes there has been a ferment of activity, and the National Institute for Mental Health for England (NIMHE) has been given the lead role in advancing all central government efforts to create a more joined-up vision of mental health for the 21st century. NIMHE has taken the lead on implementation of the SEU's conclusions, and much more besides. A National Project Team on mental health and housing is to come together next year, with a wide-ranging brief. This article looks at some of the issues that this new body will take on, including a new focus on research on the links between poor mental health and poor housing, and on evaluation of 'housing-based solutions'. As NIMHE itself is absorbed from April into the new Care Services Improvement Partnership, the prospects for linking housing with the community care modernisation agenda must be looking up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]