'Revolving Doors' - working to close them, permanently!

Back to work today doing a session at a Private mental health resources - saw 14 patients in under 2 hours! Busy!

I do regular drop in sessions where I work with the Clients/Patients to identify how best I can work with them and add to the work done by their Clinical MDT(multi-disciplinary team) to work towards their rehabilitation.

We work together; identifying the initial issues around housing; finance; debts; benefits and then over the next weeks/months work to resolve those issues so that as the Clients become more 'well' they will be in a better position to consider or be considered in a position to move back into the Community and have a chance of succeeding rather than having 'pressures' external to their mental health 'intruding' on their recovery.

Fascinating and positive advocacy which practically impacts on the Clients and which is giving many Clients who previously despite best efforts of all concerned, often bounced back into hospital having not had this restorative person centred work done with them.  We want 'no returns' rather than 'Revolving Doors' patients.  

We do sessions like this in different hospitals in different locations and they seem very successful to date!

Often we address many of these issues because the Clients have been difficult previously to reach and this intensive person centred approach puts them at the 'heart' of the work and not merely the 'recipient' passively of 'treatment'.

After the initial work, on a weekly basis often I am now simply doing 'catch or follow up' work.

And week to week it is great to see people becoming more 'well' as time passes and good to be accepted by the Clinical team as having a 'valid' and 'therapeutic' role!

In addition to the practical tasks, we develop strong relationships with the Clients which gives them someone independent from outside the hospital to talk to and trust.