STAKEHOLDER EXPERIENCES OF HOUSING AND RELATED SERVICES (HRS) IN MENTAL HEALTH: A UK CASE STUDY

Housing and related services (HRS) were developed as part of the deinstitutionalisation movement, as alternative accommodation arrangements for people living with mental health problems. Despite this movement starting over fifty years ago there are still many approaches to HRS, and no clear model of best practice. Furthermore, even with an extensive evidence base and many reviews of HRS, there is still no agreement on what a successful HRS organisation and service look like. The purpose of the study was to re-evaluate the area of HRS, working inductively rather than imposing parameters on the subject. The aim was to capture the experiences of HRS stakeholders in order to gain a richer understanding of how HRS are delivered and received in practice. A Case Study approach was adopted using an organisation that has provided HRS for people living with mental health problems for over thirty years. The stakeholders who constituted the participant group were tenants (service users) and staff (support staff, housing staff and executives on the board of trustees). The study was guided by a Grounded Theory framework, and the stakeholders participated in interviews, joint interviews and a focus group. The results were broken down into change, factors affecting HRS, and a conceptual model which formed the basis of substantive theory of HRS. A Critical Interpretive Synthesis (CIS) was undertaken to explore previous literature in HRS. The results explore descriptive information, ambiguity, black-box evaluations and theory driven evaluations in HRS. Together the study findings and the CIS were used to construct a conceptual framework which can be used to understand the processes and outcomes in HRS. Future work is needed to establish cause and effect of identified factors, but the work of this thesis makes important progress in critically exploring the area of HRS.