Hoarding
Led by Ceri Twist - Independent Living Manager, Cartrefi Conwy
and Phil Forbes - Development Manager for Supported Housing (Mental Health) at BCUHB
Background 

Health inequalities arise because of the conditions in which we are born, grow, live, work and age. These conditions influence our opportunities for good health, and how we think, feel and act, and this shapes our mental health, physical health and wellbeing. 

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This is why it was so important to set up our JDT on Hoarding Disorder as it impacts a person or family by loss of living space, social isolation, family or marital dysfunction and children’s development, financial difficulties and health hazards. 

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One of the main challenges was establishing the role of health within the MDT both from physical and psychiatric perspective. Understanding that the presenting behaviours may have resulted from historical trauma and loss, which has led to a situation which has become unmanageable for the individual and risky from a service perspective.
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“Hoarding disorder impacts a person or family by loss of living space, social
isolation, family or marital disfunction
and children’s development, financial difficulties and health hazards. ”
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Work includes:

Our JDT began in 2020 and is made up of housing associations, social services, BCUHB, emergency services, supporting people and environmental services.
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We came together through the Conwy Hoarding Group which provides collaborative, multi-agency working to support social landlords in dealing with hoarding tenants.
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Through establishing a JDT approach and creating a network of good practice. Through our network we are able to report and monitor the number of hoarding tenants in social housing in Conwy and share information and knowledge.
We hosted a hoarding forum in September 2020 to collate the data on how COVID- 19 has impacted the way tenants are supported. As part of this we will be looking at the number of cases following the lockdown, how many have deteriorated and what measures housing associations have in place to support their cases.