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Making, creating and using 'spaces'

Please note; we are in the midst of a thorough re-construction of these pages, which explore the nature of working spaces, and the choice of the term 'spaces of opportunity' . For the moment, there may be some duplication of material from elsewhere; and probably some broken links. Bear with us. Its a lot to cover......

An odd term?

Education has schools; psychiatric care has hospitals and clinics; criminal justice has prisons, courts, probation hostels. Many but by no means all homelessness services will similarly have a building - a hostel (or 'shelter"), a refuge, even just a gazebo.

The original formulation of the ‘built environment and its social spaces’ in the classic ('PIEs 1') account was intended to refer to care in the design of the environment within such a building that the service managed (such as a hostel or day centre).

But a more systemic approach to the dynamics of exclusion would suggest that the gaps between services are also a major concern, for planners and commissioners as well as for frontline staff. Staff must work with those gaps. just as commissioners must seek to reduce them.

Even for those services that primarily operate from a building will find that some highly significant constructive interaction opportunities may also arise outside the service’s own building – in a coffee bar, a park, a bus or a car.  In some services, such as outreach, these are the principal places, almost the only places, where initial and subsequent engagement interactions occur.

The term ‘built environment’, as used in 'PIEs 1',  did not really convey well an attention to the ‘environment’ of services and the idea of a ’PIE of pathways’. There seem to be three useful but fairly distinct meanings for the term environment, as applied to a field such as homelessness, for example, and each refers to rather different aspects of the services' field:

  • the built environment of buildings, that we can design and adapt for a specific purpose
  • the dispersed even chaotic environment of the world outside
  • and the networks of services that constitute a services environment or eco-system.

The terminology for constructive engagement needs to allow for such a broader range of working places. Each is of particular concern to different agencies or services, yet many services do cover all these areas, so separate treatment for each was undesirable. The problem was: how to find a word or phrase that could cover such a range?

 

The proposed solution:

In PIEs 2.0, 'spaces of opportunity' replaces ‘built environment’, or ‘physical environment’ as top tier concepts. At least, the physical environment is not the only kind of environment in which services operate, and in which staff must try to find ways to engage more effectively with service users. The services we create in any one locality are also an environment of sorts - a services environment.

But what they have in common is that they all aim to provide spaces, opportunities for constructive interaction and engagement; and the term ‘spaces’ – as against simply ‘places’ – aims to convey the openings that can be created in an environment of any kind.

Creating - and using - ‘spaces of opportunity' is a made up term, intending to express and to draw attention to what it is about both the physical and the service environment that is most significant in developing as a PIE - that is, what it is in the environment that creates or inhibits opportunities for constructive interactions.

It aims to highlight the importance of the interaction with an individual as they move from one service to another. Where commissioning aims to develop services to fill gaps, in a PIE of pathways, it is the spaces of opportunity between services, as well as within services, that they aim to create.

 

Problematic language?

But this term 'spaces of opportunity' may nevertheless still not fully or clearly convey all aspects of the environment that the earlier term ‘built environment’ had conveyed.  For example, the lighting and furnishings in a room may set out to create an atmosphere that is conducive of the quality of interactions we might like to see there. But it may be stretching a point to say that a notice or a poster on a wall is 'an opportunity' or 'an interaction'.

Yet negotiating the pathways between services, and working in the gaps between, is an essential feature of work with the marginalised and excluded. This is a complex and intangible area, and a more unusual, more abstract use of the term 'environment' .

Whether you commission for it, manage it, or just drop in to use it, the challenge – and the point – is to see the whole environment from the point of view of the users.

Further background reading/listening/viewing

Simon Community Glasgow's Access Hub

Psychological awareness ; HERE

  • Empathy and emotional intelligence : HERE
  • Approaches and techniques : HERE
  • Psychological models : HERE

Training and support : HERE

Learning and enquiry : HERE

  • Reflective practice : HERE
  • A culture of Enquiry : HERE
  • Sector engagement : HERE
  • Evidence- generating practice : HERE

Spaces of opportunity : HERE

  • The built environment : HERE
  • Networks and surroundings : HERE
  • Pathways, systems and system coherence : HERE

The Three Rs : HERE

  • Rules and procedures : HERE
  • Roles and relationships : HERE
  • Responsiveness : HERE

 

Where are relationships in PIEs 2.0? : HERE

A lived experience view of PIEs : HERE

What's the Big Idea?  : HERE

From PIEs 1 to PIEs 2.0 : HERE

Will there be a PIEs 3? : HERE

Settings :  HERE

Library items
 

The built environment and the safe couch : HERE

A checklist of trauma-informed care principles in built environment design : HERE

Well-being by design - the questions you might ask :  HERE

Principles and practice in psychology and homelessness; core skills in Pre-treatment, Trauma-Informed Care and PIEs :  HERE

Autism and safety in the environment of homelessness ( excerpt)

The Director of First Impressions (excerpt)

Car, Bus, Tram or Unicorn; why my car is a psychologically informed environment : HERE

The characteristics of successful supported housing programmes: ‘Single site’ Housing First in Finland : HERE

Simon Community Glasgow's Access Hub

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