Understanding and Supporting those with hoarding behaviours

What does 'Hoarding Behaviours' mean?

NHS England defines hoarding as "where someone acquires an excessive number of items and stores them in a chaotic manner, usually resulting in unmanageable amounts of clutter. The items can be of little or no monetary value."

Why we want to involve people with experience of hoarding behaviour and their families?

We want to better understand lived experiences.

We want to learn about the support people have accessed, whether it was useful or not and why.

We recognise that people with direct lived experience are experts by experience and are key to informing and shaping meaningful, effective support services.

Hoarding Co-production Task & Finish Group

This group brings together lots of different views and experiences around Hoarding behaviours.

We want to have a space where shared understanding can happen.

We want to better understand the different responsibilities different services have in supporting people with hoarding behaviours.

We also want to involve those with direct lived experience and the experiences of those who care for them in this group.

We aim to use this group to discuss and shape solutions to improve the way we deal with hoarding scenarios when they arise and facilitate early intervention measures to prevent hoarding cases reaching crisis point.

Current Members: Staffordshire County Council - engagement, public health representatives; Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service; Reaching CIC; District and Borough Housing and Environmental Health Teams, Vulnerability Hub Managers, MPFT Social Services; Housing Associations; Support Staffordshire.

Who do we want to involve?

• People who currently access or have accessed a service to support hoarding behaviours
• People who don’t currently access services but may want to in the future
• Family members
• Carers
• Front-line staff who deliver a support service
• People who commission services
• The voluntary sector and partners
• Members of the community