What is the P2C model?
The P2C model was co-designed by persons with lived experiences of homelessness, researchers, service providers and organizational leaders in the Kingston and London, ON communities through the Transition from Homelessness Study. This intervention is meant to support persons who have transitioned to housing following homelessness to find belonging in their communities after leaving shelters, encampments, or the street.
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Community Integration
Community integration is the goal of the P2C program. By community integration, we refer to three components: 1) spending time in one's community outside of one's apartment; 2) building social networks; and 3) attaining a sense of belonging in one's community (Wong & Solomon, 2002). The P2C program aims to support community integration through relationship building and meaningful activity engagement among individuals following homelessness.
Meaningful Activity Engagement
We know most of the people in our lives because of the meaningful activities that we have in common with them. For instance, we may know a group of friends from work, by participating in sports activities, or by participating in community activism. Multiple studies have identified that persons who are housed following homelessness lack opportunities to engage in meaningful activities, leading to profound boredom and a consequent lack of purpose. The P2C program offers individually-focused and group programming aimed at helping individuals to engage in meaningful activity that connects them with others in their community following homelessness. This programming includes opportunities for recreational activities, opportunities to make and share meals with one another, and to participate in employment on one's own terms.
Relationship Building
An important component of the P2C model is to support individuals who are leaving homelessness to build relationships with new social networks after being unhoused. This can include helping individuals to reconnect with previous social relationships (friends and family) or new relationships entirely.
Service Providers
Service providers in the P2C model include occupational therapy, social work, and peer support specialists providing care at a client-service provider ratio of 10:1. The role of occupational therapy is to provide expertise in mental health and strategies to support individuals to participate in meaningful activities. The role of social work is to provide expertise in mental health and strategies for relationship building. The role of peer support is to provide expertise in lived experience to support relationship building and meaningful activity engagement that can support community integration.
Community Space
The community space in the P2C model is to provide a place for individuals who have transitioned to housing following homelessness to feel like they belong in the community. The community space is where some of the P2C group programming is delivered, and where P2C program participants can drop by to connect with staff.
Support Meeting
Working in the housing and homeless and mental health sectors can place service providers at risk of moral distress and injury. in the co-design process of the P2C model, persons with lived experience, researchers, service providers and organizational leaders all identified the importance of providing opportunities for support among the P2C team to discuss complex cases and work through experiences of moral distress. This has been incorporated in this model in order to mitigate the potential for moral injury among staff in the P2C program.
Philosophies of the P2C Model
The P2C model is informed by four key philosophies:
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Trauma and Violence-Informed Care (TVIC): Homelessness and poverty represent structural inequities that frequently result in trauma to individuals and communities. Persons who experience homelessness unfortunately also experience victimization by others during homelessness, thereby deepening the trauma that they experience. In the P2C model, practice is structured to limit the extent to which trauma is re-activated in the context of delivering care.
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Recovery-oriented: The P2C model involves delivering services that are recovery-oriented. The recovery model of mental health care posits that people have the ability to live meaningful lives while still experiencing the symptoms of mental illness and substance use disorder.
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Harm reduction: Services delivered in the P2C model utilize a harm reduction approach to care. This means that when individuals are engaged in behaviour that may involve the potential for harm, that services aim to reduce harm rather than expect a reduction in the behaviour itself. For example, if a person is engaged in substance use and wishes to continue to do so, service providers in the P2C model may focus on supporting service users to access resources that reduce harm rather than require abstinence to access services.
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Person-centred: All individual and group-based programming delivered in the P2C model is determined in collaboration with service users. Group-based programming is determined by program participants, and designed and co-delivered in collaboration with individuals who use the P2C program. Program participants are never asked to focus on goals that they do not view as important in their lives, or using solutions that are determined by program staff.
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