King's College London

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Background

Our two SSCR-funded studies on hoarding behaviour ‘Social care responses to self-neglect and hoarding among older people: what works in practice?’ and ‘Decluttering the homes of people with hoarding behaviours: Local authority commissioning, professional practices, and user experiences’ have provided rich information on the needs of people experiencing hoarding behaviour and how they could be best supported by statutory and other services.

One of the emerging findings was that while training is commissioned and delivered by local authorities and other agencies, there are gaps in our knowledge about the content and quality of such training and how it is being facilitated.

Aims

The aim is to better understand the provision of training for front-line professionals in local authorities, other statutory agencies and out-sourced decluttering services, who support people with hoarding behaviours, in order to inform and improve practice.

Methods

There are two steps to the project:

1) To undertake supplementary interviews to fill in the gaps in our knowledge.

2) To synthesize findings from the literature, our two previous studies and the supplementary interviews to inform practice and make recommendations.

Timescale

This is a short-term project from May to September 2023.

Funding

NIHR School for Social Care Research (Research Project P156-AV).

Output

A short report will be published with the funder and a research paper will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal. The research team also plans a webinar to present findings.

See also

The two previous studies:

• Social care responses to self-neglect and hoarding among older people: what works in practice? 
• Decluttering the homes of people with hoarding behaviours: Local authority commissioning, professional practices, and user experiences 

Outputs from the previous studies:

• Evidence review on treatment approaches:
  Steils, N., Woolham, J., Manthorpe, J., Martineau, S., Owen, J., Stevens, M., & Tinelli, M. (2022) What do we know about hoarding behaviour and treatment approaches for older people? A thematic review, London: NIHR Policy Research Unit in Health and Social Care Workforce, The Policy Institute, King's College London. 
• Open-access research paper on adult safeguarding managers' understandings of self-neglect and hoarding:
  Owen, J., Woolham, J., Manthorpe, J., Steils, N., Martineau, S., Stevens, M., Tinelli, M. (2022) Adult safeguarding managers' understandings of self-neglect and hoarding. Health & Social Care in the Community. 
• Two blog posts:
  Martineau, S. (2022) ‘…items and belongings…’ – a hoarding case at the Court of Protection, (blog post), Health & Social Care Workforce, 27 September.
  Martineau, S. (2022) On best interests: values and participation in mental capacity law, (blog post), Health & Social Care Workforce, 26 June.

Half-day event

1 February 2024: New Perspectives on Hoarding Behaviours... from Psychology, Law & Social Care