‘It’s not just a lot of words’. A qualitative exploration of residents’ descriptions of helpful relationships in supportive housing

Abstract

This article explores how professional relationships may be helpful from the perspective of residents in community-based staffed supportive housing for individuals with severe mental illness (SMI) and/or drug abuse. Residents were individually interviewed about a relationship with a self-chosen staff member, the content of the help provided by this staff member and how this help influenced their lives. Using thematic analysis, we found that the residents described mutual relationships that resembled friendships and helpful staff members who carried out a variety of doings. Four domains of doings were identified: small human gestures, filling the hours with 'friendship', enabling the residents to take care of their own needs and fighting on behalf of the residents to ensure rights and benefits. To some of the residents, these doings had life-changing impact. We propose that mental health service management should facilitate friendship resemblance when matching professionals and service users, and we warn against a pitfall were present 'recovery ideals', such as independency, contradict the idea of helping by doing.

“I will never forget him”. A qualitative exploration of staff descriptions of helpful relationships in supportive housing

“…The staff members were recruited after being identified and described as helpful by individually interviewed residents. The recruitment of the residents has been described in detail in the corresponding resident study (Lindvig et al, 2019). Seven residents, three women and four men, all diagnosed with severe mental illness and/or drug addiction, described nine staff altogether as two of the residents described two staff members each.…”

“…The overall aim of the project was to study experience‐based knowledge on helpful relationships from both service users and professionals in supportive housing. The first study of the project (the “resident study”) explored residents’ descriptions of a professional relationship with a staff member who was assessed by the involved resident as helpful (Lindvig et al, 2019). The present study explored the helpful staff’s descriptions of the very same relationships.…”

“…These experiences can be mediated by small things, including seemingly casual events (Topor, Bøe, & Larsen, 2018). Service users also appreciate both practical help (Lindvig, Larsen, Topor & Bøe, 2019) and having someone to be with and talk to about difficulties (Borg & Kristiansen, 2004). Additionally, Sandhu and colleagues (Sandhu, Arcidiacono, Aguglia, & Priebe, 2015) stress the importance of reciprocality in their review of eleven papers on therapeutic relationships within mental healthcare contexts ranging from psychiatric wards to social support in the community.…”

“…The relationship‐focused research cited above comprises studies on a wide range of community‐based mental health services, including care provided in the service user’s own home. However, only one of the studies (Lindvig et al, 2019) deals with in‐depth explorations of professional relationships within the new supportive housing institutions. This picture is not clear, because terms like “supportive housing,” “supported accommodation” and hundreds of other terms are used indiscriminately, referring to various accommodation‐related interventions ranging from mobile care and support provided in ordinary homes on one side to residential care homes or shelter for homeless people on the other side.…”

A diversity of patterns: 10-year trajectories of men and women diagnosed with psychosis for the first time. A time-geographic approach

“…Supported housing is more a long-term project and may reveal some contradictions on the matter. It may enhance the possibilities of normalised living conditions (as a place of your own) and enhanced access to control your daily life (indicating less authority constraints) and supporting staff may help to decrease capacity constraints (Andersson, 1997(Andersson, , 2016Ruud et al, 2019). But internal rules (for example participation in activities, compulsory contact with social services/psychiatry, cooperation with staff) indicate the possibility of extensive authority restrictions.…”