PIEs five years on

Date14 November 2016
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/MHSI-08-2016-0022
Published date14 November 2016
Pages221-230
AuthorPeter Cockersell
Subject MatterHealth & social care,Mental health,Social inclusion
PIEs five years on
Peter Cockersell
Peter Cockersell is a
Psychotherapist, a Lecturer
and a Consultant at the Surrey
University, Guildford, UK.
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to consider evidence for the effectiveness of the psychologically
informed environments (PIEs) approach to working with homeless people in the five years since the national
guidance was published.
Design/methodology/approach The author reviewed the intended outcomes of the original guidance
and then looked at a range of data from evaluations of current PIE services in UK and Ireland.
Findings The findings were that the PIE approach is effective in meeting the outcomes suggested by the
original guidance; in reducing social exclusion and improving the mental health of homeless people; and in
improving staff morale and interactions.
Research limitations/implications This is a practice-based evidence. There needs to be more
practice-based evidence gathered, and it would be useful if there were some standardised measures,
as long as these did not limit the ri chness of the data which sugge sts that PIEs have a wide, not
narrow, impact.
Practical implications The implications are that homelessness services should use the PIE approach, and
that they should be supported by clinically trained psychotherapists or psychologists; and that wider mental
health services should look at the PIE approach in terms of working effectively with socially excluded people
with complex needs/mental health problems.
Social implications PIEs are an effective way of working with socially excluded people with mental
health problems/complex needs, enabling the reduction of social exclusion among this very excluded
client group.
Originality/value This is the first review of evidence, much of it so far unpublished, for the effectiveness of
PIEs, despite the fact that this approach has been increasingly adopted by both providers and
commissioners in the homelessness sector.
Keywords Mental health, Effectiveness, Complex trauma, Evidence, Social exclusion, PIEs
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Psychologically informed services for homeless people, Good Practice Guide
(Keats et al., 2012) was published in 2012, and was launched at several events sponsored
by the National Housing Federation, the NHS Confederation, and Homeless Link. The
guidance was published under the logos of the Department of Communities and Local
Government, the Un iversity of Southampton, Path way, the College of Medicine, an dH omeless
Healthcare (a wholly owned subsidiary of St Mungos). It was published on the Homeless
Healthcare and the University of Surreys websites, as an online resource and as a PDF,
and became known as The PIE Guidance .
The Guidance recommended the establishment of psychologically informed environments
(PIEs)(p. 3) as a way of working with people with histories of complex or compound trauma who
had become, or in the case of adolescents were at high risk of becoming, chronically homeless.
The concept of PIEs built on the ideas of enabling environmentsdeveloped by Johnson
and Haigh (2011) in the field of psychiatric care, and of psychologically informed planned
DOI 10.1108/MHSI-08-2016-0022 VOL. 20 NO. 4 2016, pp. 221-230, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 2042-8308
j
MENTALHEALTH AND SOCIAL INCLUSION
j
PAG E 22 1

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