Abstract
The rate of homelessness is rising, resulting in a need for better-designed services to support those affected. Building on the sector's acknowledgement that personalised support is needed to reverse this trend and based on the psychological concept of the emotional home, we propose a tool that helps those experiencing housing issues feel empowered to better express their housing needs to support teams. The tool breaks down the complex concept of 'home' into tangible components of the feeling of home, developed through qualitative studies. Here, we discuss the process of working in partnership with a local charitable service provider to refine the components, and we present the tool's initial assessment and potential to mitigate the inherited power dynamics in a situation where help is provided for vulnerable individuals. This research will be helpful to those involved in the design of services to support vulnerable people affected.
Keywords
homelessness; emotional home; feeling of home; service design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.321
Citation
Hegymegi, E., Haines, V., Cain, R., and Liguori, A. (2024) Developing A Tool To Empower The Disempowered: The Components Of The Feeling Of Home, in Gray, C., Ciliotta Chehade, E., Hekkert, P., Forlano, L., Ciuccarelli, P., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2024: Boston, 23–28 June, Boston, USA. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2024.321
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Research Paper
Included in
Developing A Tool To Empower The Disempowered: The Components Of The Feeling Of Home
The rate of homelessness is rising, resulting in a need for better-designed services to support those affected. Building on the sector's acknowledgement that personalised support is needed to reverse this trend and based on the psychological concept of the emotional home, we propose a tool that helps those experiencing housing issues feel empowered to better express their housing needs to support teams. The tool breaks down the complex concept of 'home' into tangible components of the feeling of home, developed through qualitative studies. Here, we discuss the process of working in partnership with a local charitable service provider to refine the components, and we present the tool's initial assessment and potential to mitigate the inherited power dynamics in a situation where help is provided for vulnerable individuals. This research will be helpful to those involved in the design of services to support vulnerable people affected.