Settings

The settings are the places or contexts in which we work; and this is where we can create what the PIEs 2.0 formula calls the 'spaces of opportunity' for our client or user group.

Sometimes it will be physical buildings that we use; sometimes the spaces between services that we must help users to navigate; and always it is the social environment created by the service itself - what we have called the 'Three Rs' - that creates such opportunities.

Through the side panels we hope to show many examples of specific settings, and the kind of work being done there.

 

The PIEs approach was first identified and spelled out in the context of UK's homelessness 'hostels' or 'transitional supported accommodation'; and this remains a key area of work. Whether in a specific building, in 'networked housing', or 'scattered site' accommodation, the buildings we can use, and the ways we can adapt and use them, are key environments.

But the possibilities in a building - opportunities and constraints - are comparable in day centres and similar venues. In the past year or so, even soup kitchens have joined the PIElink, wanting to see how the very, very temporary environments they provide can nevertheless be as constructive as possible.

We soon found, however that services without any building at all were finding something that worked for them, in the PIEs approach. The new PIEs 2.0 framework has attempted to broaden the idea of an environment to include the whole of the social environment either within, or without, a building.

 

The PIES approach itself stems at least in part from much earlier efforts in the second half of the 20th Century to transform hospitals into 'therapeutic communities'; and we are now finding these ideas here are re-entering clinical and social care settings.

 

Finally, exclusion and marginalisation of those with the more complex needs - those most at risk of falling through the safety nets of community support - often reflect the ways that services work together - or fail to.

These are systemic problems; and the PIEs approach also informs local area commissioning and partnership work, the better to meet complex needs, and improve the pathways into and out from specific services.

Further background reading/listening/viewing

PIElink pages'

Spaces of opportunity' : HERE

The 'Three Rs' : HERE

 

PIEs in clinical settings : HERE

Hostels and accommodation based services  : HERE

PIEs, 'scattered site' and 'networked; housing : HERE

Transitional supported accommodation : HERE

'Recovery' Housing  in the US and UK : HERE

Permanent supported housing : HERE

 

Outreach and rough sleeper ('unsheltered') services : HERE

 

Commissioning  :HERE

System change and system brokerage : HERE