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Host Families. HPFT’s Host Families Scheme Health and Wellbeing Board: Provider Engagement 11February 2013 John Lavelle-Service Line Lead. What is a Host Family?.
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Host Families HPFT’sHost Families Scheme Health and Wellbeing Board: Provider Engagement 11February 2013 John Lavelle-Service Line Lead
What is a Host Family? Any family (in conjunction with mental health professionals) that can offer a supportive home environment to a service user in an acute phase of mental ill health as an alternative to acute inpatient care.
Host families’ key Aims • To develop a service that is recovery orientated and offers choices to service users who are experiencing an episode of acute mental ill health. • Provide a least restrictive alternative to admission that is person centred, therapeutic, safe and cost effective. • Reduce mental heath stigma. • Maintain connections with society.
What We Did • Visited a Host Family Scheme in Lille, France and gained their support in developing the HPFT model. • Worked in partnership with key stakeholders; service users, carers and clinicians in developing the scheme. • Recruited Host Families and developed a support network for them. • Built the confidence of local clinicians in the efficacy of the Host Family scheme. • Commissioned an independent evaluation.
Progress So Far • 5 Families have been recruited and inducted. • 4 families being recruited. • 14 Service users have chosen placements as an alternative to hospital. • Early feedback has been excellent . • Increased referral rates for Host Family placements as clinicians become confident in the scheme.
Service Improvement • Offers choice to service users experiencing acute mental ill health. • Provides a personalised and de-institutional approach to acute mental healthcare. • Offers 24 hour support within a safe, community based environment. • A cost effective alternative to inpatient care. • Delivers good clinical outcomes. • Excellent service user feedback .
Host Families Service User Feedback • Dean was asked, what were the benefits of being placed with a host family? • “It changed a lot of aspects of my thinking. You don’t think you’ll ever be in that situation [the ward]. All of a sudden you are in this deep big hole, and then when I was in the host family I was above ground. I was happier – talking to someone who will listen to you all the while. I would say that it saved me. … If I had left the ward and gone straight back home I would have deteriorated again, without a shadow of a doubt.”
Aspirations For The Future • Role out the scheme across all of Hertfordshire so that service users will have the choice of a Host Family in their area. • Provide a significant alternative to inpatient care that will deliver efficiencies in acute care pathway. • Promote this model to other trusts through conferences, posters, publications and winning this award!