A PIE organisation is designed to meet the emotional and psychological needs of service users in order to empower them to make positive changes in their lives.
St Basils became one of the first Psychologically Informed Environments or ‘PIEs’ in 2011, in recognition that homeless young people were increasingly struggling with mental health problems, had experience of trauma and abuse and presented with challenging behaviours.
As part of being in a PIE organisation, all staff take part in PIE Foundation Training; with managers and frontline staff completing an intensive three day training package to ensure that they have the attitude, knowledge and skills to collaborate with the young people they support. Additional to training is a Reflective Practice strategy which means that all managers and front-line staff attend groups to embed PIE learning and gain support with mental health issues. Distinctively, a key feature of the St Basils’ model is that all trainers and facilitators are experienced Clinical Psychologists with knowledge of mental health, neuroscience and PIE tools.
Evidence is building to support the learning that this approach enables staff to help young people build confidence and resilience, so they are better equipped to tackle the challenges they face in order to achieve long-lasting and positive change. In partnership with the University of Birmingham, evaluation of the St Basils PIE model are in progress, investigating the strengths of the model, the economic impact, as well as constant learning to inform continuous development. As well as supporting positive outcomes for young people, PIE has been found to have benefits for staff and across the organisation as a whole.
So what is a PIE organisation?
An organisation can describe itself as a Psychologically-Informed Environment or “PIE” when it utilises evidence-based psychological models and theories to inform practices, policies, processes and procedures.
It was originally designed to help hostel staff work more effectively with homeless individuals who were repeatedly excluded or marginalised from their community as a result of their challenging behaviour.
Instead of blaming or criticising individuals with aggressive or difficult behaviour; it seeks to understand why people behave in this way and helps staff to find creative ways to empower these individuals to make positive changes for themselves.
From this start, PIE has expanded to other sectors where organisations are facing challenges, as it has been found to increase staff resilience through improving mental well-being and team cohesiveness.
Learn more about the innovative approaches and impact of the RSI PIE Plus programme tackling homelessness by viewing our recent “Inclusion Health- Spotlight on Homelessness” event summary below.
Learn more about PIE
If you would like to learn more about what a PIE is and the St Basils’ PIE journey, we have quarterly online briefings plus a Q&A session hosted by our CEO, Jean Templeton and our PIE Lead, Dr Amanda Skeate.
The next PIE Briefing will be held on Tuesday 10th December at 9:30-11:00am via Microsoft Teams.
Please email PIE@stbasils.org.uk to secure your place, or to find out more.