We see people make remarkable changes in their lives, and often they say this was possible through the support they received. The St Mungo’s Recovery Approach summarises how St Mungo’s services support the journey to recovery and how we help people to re-build their lives.
The Recovery Approach sets out what St Mungo’s sees as the best ways to work with clients to support their recovery through four ‘building blocks’:
- Building initial relationships and trust
- Securing resources and opportunities
- Developing client skills
- Providing support that enables and empowers.
When we do all of these well, someone we help is more likely to develop the confidence, skills and resilience to re-build their lives.
As well as the lived experience of clients and the expertise of our staff, the Recovery Approach drew on good practice from across the homelessness sector and other fields including mental health and substance misuse. We incorporated evidence-based approaches that underpin, for example, Psychologically Informed Environments, person-centred approaches and trauma-informed services.
But with our commitment to being an evidence-based organisation, we wanted to go further. So earlier this year our Research team commissioned Revolving Doors Agency to undertake a critical and independent Rapid Evidence Review of the St Mungo’s Recovery Approach.
The review considered a wide range of research and confirmed that there is a positive evidence base to support the components of our approach and showed that we are drawing on well researched good practice. It also makes recommendations for further research where more evidence would help.