REACH is a multi-agency Housing First project in Scarborough which aims to support people with complex needs to access housing and facilitate change towards recovery – as defined by the person.
Multi-agency working is at the heart of the project, with a team comprising mental health nurses, support officers from both a social landlord and the local authority, and myself – a domestic abuse practitioner. REACH also benefits from the support and guidance of a consultant clinical psychologist, two days a week. By bringing together diverse experience and expertise from a range of professionals, it aims to provide holistic person-centred care to aid recovery.
The project is specifically designed to work with, and provide comprehensive support for, those who have experienced high levels of multiple disadvantages. This means working with a complex interplay of drug and alcohol issues, mental illness, criminality and complex trauma presentations.
As a domestic abuse practitioner, I work with those who have experience of domestic abuse, which is almost always a factor in the lives of our clients. Often clients have experienced domestic violence across their lifespans – from witnessing it in childhood to their own intimate relationships. Due to the complex and traumatised attachments people have experienced, victim-perpetrator dynamics are common, and therefore my role is unusual in domestic abuse services. Work with victims and perpetrators is usually strictly separated. However, in my own experience of working with those who are homeless, with co-existing conditions and needs, these areas are closely linked – with people perpetrating abuse within their relationships, and also finding themselves victims of their partner’s abuse.
Homelessness tends to throw people together through necessity, sparking relationships where both parties are often heavily under the influence of substances, and creating situations where each plays out the modelled relationship patterns they’ve been exposed to in their own childhood environments.
Invariably these early traumatising environments are described to me as chaotic, unstable, and insecure – frightening places filled with abuse and neglect. Those with intense experiences of loss, abandonment, and relational trauma can find themselves looking to their partner to fulfil all their emotional needs. But when their partner is unable to provide this, emotions can run high, and – with the disinhibiting effects of alcohol and substances – things can escalate quickly.
What’s been of interest is that often there’s no recollection of events the next day, due to the high levels of intoxication. This can sometimes lead to a process of minimising the serious nature of what’s occurred, while at other times it can be experienced as frightening or shameful – leading to further substance use to cope. Relationships are often made and broken within weeks or days, and are frequently experienced intensely due to the shared historic experiences of trauma and the need to feel intimacy and connection. So relationships that are craved through the hope of an elusive feeling of care and stability can actually cause further harm.
Homelessness is, of course, a stressful situation for anyone, and this can significantly add to relationship difficulties, further exacerbated by the distrustfulness involved in communal drug use. Limited resources can lead to suspicion, paranoia and altercations that may not be perceived by either party as domestic abuse, but are commonly controlling and coercive in nature.
People’s own internalised beliefs about gender can also be a barrier to recognising themselves as victims of abuse, especially with more subtle forms such as coercion and control. Some men can be reluctant to acknowledge the extent to which their female partner’s controlling behaviour impacts their own wellbeing, or how coercion can negate free will.
Overall, the work in this field is both challenging and rewarding – working with a demographic often ignored by society, but who are nonetheless interesting, warm, and funny individuals who have each come to homelessness via unique but all too similar pathways. These invariably involve drug and alcohol use that began as a means of coping and escapism, but became a source of its own trauma along the way.
The wins are amazing – seeing someone who has been street homeless for ten or more years settled into a property and building more secure and respectful relationships is a wonderful feeling. The way the REACH team works in the Scarborough locality is a radical approach. It takes the onus off the individual to make changes to attain a home, and instead provides the home and the appropriate support to overcome challenges.
It’s this that makes my role so fulfilling – knowing we’re tackling things from a person-centred, trauma informed care perspective, and in ways that have the power to heal and change lives.
Emma Locker is a domestic abuse practitioner at IDAS Scarborough and Ryedale