The Trauma-Informed Approaches to Hoarding Disorder has been delivered to over a thousand health and social care professionals across the UK, and has been taken up by the Chartered Institute of Housing and the NHS Recovery College as part of their training provision. The course is CPD-accredited and considers hoarding disorder in a holistic and therapeutic context, exploring alternatives to house clearances and eviction, and looking at the positives to buying into a new model of support for this incredibly complex and often misunderstood illness.

As a tenancy management issue, hoarding has become one of the leading causes of eviction. With a prevalence rate that is more than treble that of schizophrenia and OCD, hoarding disorder is remarkably unresponsive to medication, and house clearances have a 100% relapse rate without therapeutic input. This multi-faceted condition needs a multi-faceted approach, with new philosophies at its centre to promote positive tenancies.

The course will address the following learning outcomes:

• Explain why people hoard (the tales behind the treasure)

• Understand trauma-informed practice

• Recognise how traumatic experiences such as bereavement, eviction and poverty can relate to hoarding behaviour

• Identify the early signs of hoarding

• Initiate a compassionate dialogue

• Identify different types of hoarding and how they fit into the new diagnostic criteria for hoarding disorder

• Describe hoarding from a tenancy governance perspective

• Promote a consistent understanding of when to escalate hoarding cases

• Use enforcement action in a compassionate way

• Identify potential treatment pathways and practical support.

Hoarding is an issue that will invariably be encountered not only by professionals working in housing and mental health, but emergency services, social services, environmental health and local authorities. Join us as we channel the expertise of each of our attendees to come together and explore compassionate approaches for this incredibly complex mental health condition.