SPUR Project

2011 winner (5 of 20)

Can psychological research provide useful tools to help services for the homeless and excluded to become more "psychologically informed environments"?

Supervisor: Dr Eva Sundin (Psychology)

Student: Jackie Hamilton

The critical importance of developing strategies and approaches to facilitate psychological growth in homeless people is recognised by many.  The term psychologically informed environment, or "PIE", is increasingly used to refer to a place or a service in which the overall approach and the day-to-day running have been carefully designed to take into account the psychological and emotional needs of the service users.  The project aimed to evaluate the usefulness of existing psychological research to the developing practice in homelessness services of becoming more "psychologically informed environments"; to consider how psychological research might be made more available, more useful and to consider the key knowledge gaps, and what new research/programmes would be most valuable to the application of psychology in this area.  Student tasks included a literature review, co-development of an interview schedule and undertaking of interviews with key stakeholders in a number of UK locations.