Social Care News and Features

Hoarding can be described as the collecting of, and inability to discard, large quantities of, goods, objects or information. It may involve neglecting aspects of the home and/or self, resulting in poor sanitary conditions and social isolation.

Hoarding has implications for physical and mental health, wellbeing, housing tenure and safety, which is why intervention to help the person change their hoarding behaviour is so important.

The earlier the intervention, the easier it is for the person to consider change.

When working with someone who hoards, seek to:

1. Develop a rapport.
2. Find activities, work or education that the person enjoyed doing and try to help them engage in community activities.
3. Understand what feelings the person has about themselves, their house and why things are the way they are.
4. Use a strengths-based approach to determine the positive things that a person has in their life or can achieve for themselves and how they would like to manage risk.
5. Consider trauma-informed approaches and methods of motivation and communication.
6. Create cognitive dissonance – the difference between the person and their behaviours – to help them see themselves more positively.
7. Take one small step at a time with lots of encouragement.
8. Use a multi-agency response.
9. Consider wider safeguarding issues such as hate crime, domestic abuse, anti-social behaviour, safeguarding other adults or children in the property or historical abuse.
10. Do not force change if at all possible.

Gaining a person’s trust and supporting them to make change often takes time. Social workers and occupational therapists should work with the pace of the individual concerned whenever possible. Where risks are identified, cases should not be closed because of a lack of engagement without a thorough risk assessment and alternative arrangements being made to continue supporting the person.