‘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 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.

KEYWORDS:

• Professional relationships
• supportive housing
• helpful help
• mutuality
• doings

NØKKELORD:

• profesjonelle relasjoner
• bofellesskap
• hjelpsom hjelp
• gjensidighet
• handlinger

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Norwegian Counsel for Mental Health and founded by The Norwegian Extra Foundation for Health and Rehabilitation under [grant number 2017FO143232].

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.