Integrating Social Care and Housing

The Challenge for Housing Professionals

Integrating Social Care and Housing Social care

faces a further £1bn of cuts this year, which will lead to fewer people getting care

The Guardian – June 2015

The Connection; The connection between housing and health – both of individuals and

populations – has a long and well-evidenced historical provenance.

'Decent housing makes a fundamental difference to mental and physical health and wellbeing and has a critical contribution to make to the value and effectiveness of the health and care systems. But these services do not always join up well, and housing can sometimes be left out of the equation.'

This statement is from Delivering lifetime homes, lifetime neighbourhoods, the seven-year-old national strategy of housing in an ageing society but it could have been written yesterday.

The Synergy

What both sectors have in common is the ability to engage with an individual on the level of that person’s day-to-day reality.

Both sectors have a track record of supporting society’s vulnerable and hard-to-reach people and developing a holistic understanding of that person’s circumstances.

Housing and Social Care Professionals – a Shared Value base?

Inclusion Equality Person Centred Honest Caring

Some Facts More than 75% of front line housing staff believe their

interactions with tenants have been more challenging since the introduction of the government’s welfare reforms - and the bedroom tax in particular.

Nearly half of the respondents experienced somebody threatening to commit suicide during the six months to November last year.

58 per cent have found there are increased mental

health issues among their customers.Ref: Straightforward Survey Dec 2013

Some Facts – Mental Health

‘Higher levels of poor mental health and wellbeing and mental illness are inextricably linked with deprivation (within Leeds).

‘Our most deprived communities nationally and locally have the poorest mental and physical health and wellbeing’

  

Reference: ‘Mental Health and Wellbeing in Leeds: An Assessment of Need in the Adult Population (May 2011)’

Some Facts – Dementia

There are 850,000 people living with dementia in the UK In the UK over 40,000 people under 65 years of age

have dementia. By 2025 the number is expected to rise to over one

million and by 2050 it is projected to exceed 2 million. There are approximately 700,000 informal carers in the

UK caring for their loved ones with dementia, this is expected to rise to 1.7 million

Ref: Alzheimers Research UK

An Aging Population;

Currently nearly 6 million households are headed by a person aged 65 or over in England. By 2021, this is expected to increase to over 7 million.

There are now 1.5 million people over the age of 85 The specialist housing currently on offer does not reflect

the choices that most older people make.

Ref: www.ageuk.org.uk

Supporting Housing Professionals

Define Emotional ResilienceResilience is a term used in psychology to describe the capacity of people to cope with stress and catastrophe. It is also used to indicate a characteristic of resistance to future negative events.

The ability to recover readily from adversity‘Hardiness’‘Inner strength’ A set of conditions that enables individuals to adapt to challenges

Social SupportBuilding good relationships

with others and seeking support can help individuals

overcome adverse situations, rather than trying to cope on

their own

RESILIENCE

Purposefulness

Having a clear sense of purpose, clear values, drive

and direction help individuals to persist and achieve in the

face of setbacks Adaptability

Flexibility and adapting to changing situations which are

beyond our control are essential. Resilient individuals

are able to cope well with change and their recovery from it’s impact tends to be

quicker

ConfidenceHaving feelings of

competence, effectiveness in coping with stressful situations

and strong self esteem are inherent to feeling resilient

Ref: Robertson Cooper

Detachment

Ability to maintain concern and caring without the negative results of rescuing, enabling, fixing or controlling.

Ability to let people accept personal responsibility for their own actions

Ability to avoid being hurt, abused, taken advantage of by people

Placing situations into a healthy, rational perspective and recognising that there is a need to back away from the uncontrollable and unchangeable realities of life.

Thank you