ABSTRACT
This article explores how professional relationships may be helpful from the perspective of residents in staffed supportive housing for individuals with severe mental health and/or drug problems. Using in-dept interviews, residents were individually asked to describe a helpful 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 service management within relationship-based practices should be open for friendship resemblance when matching professionals and service users and make room for a diversity of doings rooted in the service users’ perceived needs.
ABSTRAKT
Denne artikkelen utforsker, fra tjenestebrukeres perspektiv, hvordan profesjonelle relasjoner kan være til hjelp i bofellesskap for mennesker med alvorlige psykiske problemer og/eller rusproblemer. Beboere ble intervjuet individuelt om sin relasjon til en selvvalgt ansatt, innholdet i hjelpen fra denne ansatte og hvordan denne hjelpen påvirket beboerens liv. Ved å bruke tematisk analyse fant vi at beboerne beskrev gjensidige relasjoner som lignet på vennskap og at hjelpsomme ansatte utførte en rekke handlinger. Vi fant fire ulike typer handlinger; små menneskelige gester, initiativ til og gjennomføring av sosiale aktiviteter, hjelp til selvhjelp og kamp på vegne av beboerne for å sikre rettighetene deres. For noen av beboerne hadde disse handlingene livsforvandlende effekt. Vi anbefaler at man ved fordeling av primærkontakter innen psykisk helsearbeid tilrettelegger for muligheter til å utvikle vennskapslignende relasjoner og at det gis rom for at ansatte kan utføre et mangfold av handlinger utfra tjenestebrukernes erfarte behov.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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Notes on contributors
Gunnhild Ruud Lindvig
Gunnhild Ruud Lindvig is a PhD candidate at the Department of Psychosocial health, University of Agder. She's currently working on her thesis about helpful relationships in community-based supportive housing.
Inger Beate Larsen
Professor Inger Beate Larsen is a lecturer at The University of Agder. Her main field of research is community mental health work and the meaning of materiality and places (everyday objects, architecture, environment, landscapes). She is interested in the new institutional landscapes, and she manages the research group An Including Society.
Alain Topor
Professor Alain Topor is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Agder and Lecturer at the University of Stockholm. His fields of research are the practice of helping professionals with people with severe mental health problems and the social conditions (economy, housing, relationships, social capital) in the construction and development of, and recovery from, mental health problems.
Tore Dag Bøe
Tore Dag Bøe is an assistant professor at the University of Agder. His special field of research is dialogical approaches to mental health and social work (dialogism and network-oriented approaches), and he manages the research group Dialogical Practices.