INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Responding to Hoarding Disorder in Housing and Community Settings.
This course has been developed for practitioners who need more than a general awareness of hoarding. It is intended for those responsible for assessing situations, making decisions, managing risk, and supporting proportionate intervention.
The course draws on more than a decade of practice working alongside housing officers, social workers, mental health practitioners and multi-agency partners. Throughout the course, hoarding is approached not simply as a problem of clutter, but as a complex behavioural, emotional and environmental presentation requiring careful assessment and ethically grounded action.
Participants will examine how hoarding disorder is defined, how it differs from other forms of clutter and disorganisation, why behaviours persist, and how interventions can be planned in ways that balance safety, dignity and sustainability.
The emphasis throughout is on applied understanding: how to interpret what is happening, how to respond proportionately, and how to avoid common but ineffective intervention patterns.
COURSE OVERVIEW
This course provides a structured framework for understanding hoarding-related presentations and responding effectively in practice. It supports professionals to move beyond surface-level descriptions of clutter and towards a more informed understanding of behavioural drivers, functional impairment, environmental risk and intervention planning.
Participants will learn how to distinguish hoarding disorder from chronic disorganisation, situational disorganisation and other presentations that may appear similar in the home environment. The course also introduces the Hoarding Integrated Intervention Model (HIIM™) and the DESIRE Method™ as structured approaches to assessment, decision-making and sustainable change.
The course places particular emphasis on proportionate action, collaborative engagement and reflective practice. This is intended to help practitioners respond in ways that are defensible, ethically sound and more likely to support long-term improvement.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
By the end of this course it is expected that participants will be able to:
Explain key behavioural and psychological mechanisms associated with hoarding disorder.
Differentiate between hoarding disorder, chronic disorganisation, situational disorganisation and relevant neurodivergent presentations.
Apply a behavioural lens to assess the drivers of clutter and accumulation.
Conduct proportionate environmental and risk assessments in cluttered home environments.
Use the Hoarding Integrated Intervention Model (HIIM™) to guide structured intervention planning.
Apply the DESIRE Method™ as an operational pathway from assessment to sustainable change.
Implement behaviourally informed interventions that balance safety, autonomy and dignity.
Recognise and navigate ethical dilemmas commonly encountered in hoarding-related work.
About the course creator
Linda Fay is the founder of hoarding academy and has worked for almost fifteen years with complex hoarding presentations in collaboration with housing providers, social work, mental health services and multi-agency partners across Scotland and internationally. She previously founded Life-Pod CIC, Scotland’s first specialist hoarding support service, and has been closely involved in national work to improve policy and practice around hoarding, including taskforce and training initiatives.
She has a Masters degree in behaviour change and her practice and teaching draw on behavioural science, qualitative research and frontline experience with people living in severely cluttered environments.
Linda is the author of A Pragmatic Approach to Chronic Disorganisation and Hoarding – Using the DESIRE Method and Hoarding Disorder: Towards a Unified Approach Beyond Disciplines.
