The Courage to Trust Again

Trust is spoken about constantly in supported housing. But for someone who has learned that trusting people can be dangerous, asking for help isn’t a small step. It can be an act of courage, the courage to trust again.

“What music are you into?”

It hardly sounds like the beginning of a support plan.

There is no risk assessment hidden in the question. No outcome to measure. No box waiting to be ticked.

Sometimes I might ask about football instead. Who do you support?

What did you think of the game at the weekend?

It might be films, gaming, music or anything else that gives me a glimpse of the person sitting opposite me.

Because when I first meet somebody in supported accommodation, I don’t expect them to trust me.

Why should they? I am a stranger.

I might have read their referral. I might know something about their housing history, support needs or the circumstances that brought them to us.

But they don’t know me. And a lanyard doesn’t change that.

For some of the people we support, trusting another person may not simply be unfamiliar.

It may have proved dangerous before.

People may have been let down, rejected, abandoned, abused or disappointed. Services may have promised things that never happened. Professionals may have come and gone.

Then another support worker appears and starts asking questions.

So perhaps one of the first mistakes we can make is expecting trust simply because our job requires us to build a professional relationship.

Trust doesn’t arrive with the referral. It has to be earned.

Starting With the Person

During those first keywork sessions, I tend to keep things simple.

Of course there will be things we need to discuss. Supported housing has responsibilities, paperwork and practical realities that cannot simply be ignored.

But I also want to find a connection.

If somebody tells me about a band they love, I might go away and listen to them.

If they support a football team, I might have a look at how they’re doing.

Not because I’ve been taught a clever engagement technique.

Because next time we sit down together, we have something to talk about.

And something small has happened between those two conversations.

I remembered. Perhaps that matters more than we realise.

If somebody has spent years feeling ignored, judged or defined by the things that have gone wrong in their life, showing genuine interest in something that matters to them can communicate something very simple:

I heard you. Not your addiction. Not your arrears. Not your offending history.

Not the reason on your referral form explaining why you need supported accommodation.

You.

Sometimes the first piece of support we offer isn’t solving a problem.

It’s showing somebody that we’ve been paying attention.

Trust Is Built in Small Pieces

I don’t think there is usually one dramatic moment where a resident suddenly decides:

Right. I trust you now. It happens gradually.

A conversation about music leads to another conversation.

A joke about football makes the next keywork feel slightly less formal.

Then perhaps they ask for help ordering something for their room. We sort it.

Later there might be a medication review that needs arranging. We help with that too.

None of these things necessarily look particularly significant.

But perhaps something else is happening underneath them.

The resident is gathering evidence.

We spend a great deal of time in supported housing gathering information about residents.

Are they engaging? Are there risks?

How are they managing their tenancy?

Are they attending appointments? Are they making progress?

But while we’re assessing them, they’re assessing us too.

Did you remember what I told you?

Did you actually listen? Will you do what you said you would do?

Are you going to turn up when you said you would?

Will you treat me differently if I tell you something difficult?

Do you only come looking for me when you need something?

Are you interested in me, or only in completing my support plan?

And perhaps the biggest question of all:

Are you safe to trust?

They may never ask it. But we’re answering it all the time.

If You Say You’ll Do It, Do It

There are many sophisticated ways of talking about professional relationships.

But one of my most important rules is considerably less sophisticated:

If you say you’re going to do something, do it.

It sounds obvious.

Yet consistency is one of the foundations of trust.

If I tell somebody I’ll make a phone call tomorrow, that phone call matters.

Sometimes I won’t get the result they wanted.

Sometimes the answer will be no. Sometimes I won’t be able to solve the problem at all.

But I can still do what I said I would do and go back to them with the answer.

There is a difference between, “I couldn’t get the outcome you wanted.”

and, “I forgot.”

When somebody has experienced enough inconsistency in their life, those small promises may carry more weight than we appreciate.

Reliability is rarely dramatic.

But trust is often built through remarkably undramatic things.

Sometimes the Answer Is No

Of course, residents also test us. Constantly.

Sometimes quite creatively.

You might hear, “I can’t walk very well today. Could you go to the shop and get me some fags?”

Nice try. The answer is still no.

There is humour in examples like that, but there is also something important underneath them.

Trust doesn’t mean doing whatever somebody asks.

Professional boundaries matter.

In fact, I think consistent boundaries can be part of building trust.

If the answer is no today, yes tomorrow and “depends which member of staff you ask” on Wednesday, nobody really knows where they stand.

Consistency doesn’t require every person to receive exactly the same response. People’s circumstances are different and good support has to recognise that.

But people should understand why decisions are being made.

Sometimes trust isn’t, “My support worker will do whatever I want.”

Sometimes it is, “I know where I stand with my support worker.”

Confidentiality Is More Complicated Than a Signature

Trust can also disappear remarkably quickly.

One of the most difficult areas can be confidentiality.

Residents may sign consent allowing us to communicate with other professionals. Contacting a GP, for example, may be entirely appropriate and something they have formally agreed we can do.

Yet the resident can still experience that contact as: Why are you talking about me?

From a procedural perspective, consent may have been obtained.

From the resident’s perspective, something can still feel like a breach of trust.

That doesn’t mean we avoid necessary professional communication.

Sometimes information has to be shared, particularly where safeguarding or serious risk is involved.

But where we can involve somebody in what is happening, I think we should.

“Remember we talked about this? I think speaking to your GP might help. This is what I’d like to discuss with them.”

The signed form matters. So does the relationship.

Because trust is not only about whether we have permission to do something.

It is also about whether the person understands what we’re doing and why.

What Happens When Someone Tells You the Truth?

Eventually, if that relationship develops, the conversations can change.

Someone might tell you they’ve used drugs again.

Perhaps they’ve relapsed after weeks or months of progress.

That moment matters. Because they could have hidden it.

Instead, they’ve chosen to tell you.

And I sometimes wonder what happens in the few seconds immediately afterwards.

They are looking at us. We are looking at them.

What does our face say?

Disappointment? Frustration? Judgement? I knew you wouldn’t manage it?

Or something else?

My response is usually straightforward.

I look them in the eye. I smile. And I remind them that they’re human.

A lapse or relapse doesn’t erase everything that came before it.

If they managed three weeks, three months or whatever that period was, then they’ve already proved something important.

They did it before. They can start again. Today is day one.

That isn’t pretending the relapse doesn’t matter.

It matters enormously.

There may be risks that need addressing and difficult conversations that need to happen.

But shame doesn’t have to be added to them.

Perhaps what the resident learns in that moment isn’t simply something about recovery.

Perhaps they learn something about the relationship too.

I told you the truth, and you didn’t think less of me.

That matters.

Because if honesty is punished with judgement, we shouldn’t be surprised when the next difficult truth remains hidden.

Trust Doesn’t Mean Never Challenging Someone

There is another side to this.

Good support isn’t about getting residents to like us.

And trust doesn’t mean agreeing with everything somebody does.

Quite the opposite.

I’ve found that once somebody genuinely trusts you, once they know that you have their best interests at heart, you can often challenge them more.

Sometimes delicately. Sometimes very directly.

Different people need different approaches.

With one person, the right response might be, “Do you want to talk me through what happened?”

With somebody else, in the right relationship and the right context, it might genuinely be, “What the fuck did you do that for?”

There is no script. And I don’t think there should be.

People are different. Relationships are different.

Some people need a softly softly approach. Others respond far better to straightforward language and humour.

The important thing isn’t whether every support worker uses exactly the same words.

It’s whether we know the person well enough to understand how those words are likely to land.

And whether the person knows where those words are coming from.

There is a huge difference between challenge that says, “I’m judging you” and challenge that says, “Come on. I know you’re capable of better than this.”

Trust can make the second possible. Sometimes they even listen.

Sometimes. Let’s not get carried away.

You Have to Be Yourself

Residents are remarkably good at spotting authenticity.

You cannot manufacture genuine interest very easily.

You can learn techniques. You can learn communication skills. You can understand trauma-informed practice and professional boundaries.

All of those things matter.

But eventually you still have to walk into the room as yourself.

For me, the answer is fairly simple,

Be yourself consistently.

That doesn’t mean behaving identically with everybody. Professionalism isn’t a personality.

The way I communicate with one resident may be completely inappropriate for another.

Knowing that difference is part of knowing the person.

But underneath those different conversations, the resident should hopefully encounter the same things.

Respect, Honesty, Reliability.

Humour when appropriate. Boundaries when necessary.

And somebody who genuinely wants them to do well.

When They Start Knocking on Our Door

Perhaps the clearest sign that trust has developed is something incredibly simple.

At the beginning, we chase them.

We knock on their door. We remind them about keywork. We ask whether they need anything.

We try to engage.

Then, sometimes, the direction changes.

They start coming to us.

And the support they’re asking for often changes too.

At first it might be something small. Can you help me order this? Can you make this phone call?

Then perhaps,

Will you come to my appointment? Can you help me explain what’s happening? Could you speak to them with me? Will you advocate for me?

Those requests carry something that isn’t written down.

My support worker has my back.

I think that’s one of the greatest privileges in this job.

Someone who once barely wanted to speak to you now wants you sitting beside them during an important appointment because your presence makes something difficult feel slightly more manageable.

Not because you’ve become their friend.

Not because they are incapable of doing things themselves.

Because somewhere along the way, they decided they could trust you.

Knowing Someone We Don’t Really Know

I was recently asked during a staff debrief how I would describe professional grief.

We’ve experienced loss in supported housing, and it’s a strange thing to explain.

My answer was something along the lines of,

We grieve for people that we don’t really know.

That sounds ridiculous. We might support somebody for years.

We can know about their childhood, relationships, addiction, mental health, finances, medication, hopes, fears and some of the most difficult experiences of their life.

Yet we don’t know them in the way their family does.

We weren’t there when they were ten years old. We don’t know who they were at school. We probably haven’t met their oldest friend.

We don’t know the version of them that existed before homelessness entered their life. We know the person during one particular chapter.

And they usually know relatively little about us.

It is not friendship. It is not family.

But neither is it emotionally meaningless.

It is a professional relationship, but it is still a human relationship.

Perhaps that’s why loss can affect support workers in ways that are difficult to describe.

We spend months or years carefully building relationships with people.

We ask them to trust us. We encourage them to tell us the truth. We celebrate their progress.

We worry when things deteriorate.

They frustrate us. They make us laugh.

Occasionally they drive us absolutely mad!

Then one day they’re gone.

Perhaps we didn’t know them in the conventional sense.

But they trusted us enough to let us know a part of them.

That has value.

The Courage to Trust Again

We talk a great deal in supported housing about engagement.

Was the resident engaged? Did they attend keywork? Did they complete the support plan? Did they attend their appointment?

Those things are important.

But engagement and trust aren’t necessarily the same thing.

Someone can attend every meeting without trusting us.

Someone else can miss appointments, avoid support and appear resistant while quietly trying to work out whether this latest person offering help is going to disappear like the others did.

Trust takes time. It can take weeks or months to build and seconds to damage.

It is built through conversations that might appear to have nothing to do with support.

Football. Music. A joke.

Remembering something somebody told us three weeks ago. Making the phone call we promised we’d make.

Keeping a boundary even when it would be easier not to.

Being honest when we cannot help.

Not changing the way we look at somebody after they tell us something difficult.

And eventually something changes. We stop knocking on their door quite so often.

Because they’re knocking on ours.

For someone who has learned through experience that trusting people can lead to disappointment, rejection or harm, that journey shouldn’t be underestimated.

Asking for help isn’t always weakness.

Sometimes it says, I think you’re safe.

Sometimes it says, I believe you’ll do what you said you’ll do.

And sometimes it simply says, I think you’ve got my back.

We should never take that for granted.

Because perhaps one of the smallest looking wins in supported housing is actually one of the biggest.

Someone deciding to trust again.