Case Study:
The People's Recovery Project
Introduction
NIHR School for Social Care Research funded evidence implementation project: The People's Recovery Project
Timescale: 1 August 2023 - 31 March 2024
Funder: NIHR School for Social Care Research
Partnership: Ed Addison & Nathan Rosier (The People’s Recovery Project) and Dr Michela Tinelli (Care Policy and Evaluation Centre (CPEC), London School of Economics and Political Science)
Life is particularly challenging for individuals experiencing homelessness and addiction. Without a stable place to call home, achieving stability is nearly impossible. For those using drugs or alcohol, securing and maintaining accommodation while managing life's complexities becomes increasingly difficult. Individuals who identify residential treatment as their primary goal often encounter numerous barriers, adverse conditions, and delays.
The People’s Recovery Project (TPRP) is committed to supporting individuals experiencing homelessness and addiction by connecting them to sustainable recovery services. The goal is to help members overcome addiction, secure stable housing, reduce the use of public resources, and enhance their overall quality of life.
The People’s Recovery Project and Dr Michela Tinelli have collaborated as part of the NIHR SSCR’s Evidence Implementation Fund to undertake a testing and feasibility study to begin to evaluate the impact of residential treatment for individuals experiencing homelessness and addiction. The results from the analysis of the initial 10 cases show significant reductions in public resource use, abstinence from drugs and alcohol, increased productivity, improved housing stability, decreased benefits dependency, and enhanced quality of life. These positive outcomes reflect substantial improvements across all significant areas, providing a robust foundation for continued progress and underscoring the potential long-term benefits of the recovery programme.
Objectives
Measuring Impact and Effectiveness
The objective of the People’s Recovery Project (TPRP) is to document the experiences of its members, illustrating the impact of timely treatment and presenting tangible results to the national government. Demonstrating the effectiveness of residential treatment depends on robust data and personal stories from recovery participants. TPRP has built strong connections with many individuals willing to share their recovery journeys. However, there is a gap in comprehensive knowledge needed to fully assess the programme's impacts.
- Adaptation of Methodology: To apply LSE's economic evaluation methods to assess TPRP's work.
- Feasibility Testing: To test the feasibility of data collection and analysis for TPRP community members.
- Network Building: To establish a collaborative network for future long-term evaluation of TPRP.
Methods
The CQE team has tailored metrics to precisely measure and evaluate the programme’s effects on individuals, government, and society. These metrics, derived from the validated Out-of-Hospital Care Model, enable TPRP to better map recovery journeys, visualise economic impacts, and track changes in quality of life resulting from residential treatment.
Project Design
TPRP collaborated with Dr Michela Tinelli and her team at LSE’s CPEC to create a protocolbcapturing resource usage before and after residential treatment.
Platform Development
TPRP worked with Dr Tinelli and LSE Innovation to adapt the CQE platform to process and visualise the data.
Data Collection
The research team adapted questionnaires and health and wellbeing forms, approved by LSE ethics, to gather data from 10 individuals known to TPRP.
Data Analysis
LSE data scientists analysed this data to identify the cost implications and societal gains, including productivity improvements, reduced public expenditure, and better health outcomes.
Media Integration
TPRP utilised funding from LSE Innovation to produce films that narrate personal stories alongside the data, with a scheduled launch event in October 2024.
Key Findings
From the economic analysis of 10 community member stories:
- Reduced Drug and Alcohol Use: 690K reduction inyearly spending on drugs and alcohol for 10 individuals. This is money that isno longer being put into the hands of street level drug dealers.
- Reallocatable Public Resources: 429K in publicresource reallocation. As a result of treatment and recovery sustainment thereis a significant reduction of public resource utilisation.
- Back To Work Productivity Gain: 169k in productivity gains as a result of community members returning to the workforce. It is anticipated that productivity gains increase exponentially as recovery sustainment time increases.
Additional benefits include:
- Quality of Life Improvements: Participants showed enhanced quality of life, mental health, stable housing, and reduced dependency on social security benefits.
- Back To Work Productivity Gain: 169k in productivity gains as a result of community members returning to the workforce. It is anticipated that productivity gains increase exponentially as recovery sustainment time increases.
Implications and Recommendations
- Enhanced Data Utilisation: The CQE platform has proven that effectively visualising data can lead to better decision-making in homeless services.
- Policy Influence: Findings from the project are contributing to discussions around improving care quality for vulnerable populations.
- Best Practices: Better access to life-saving addiction treatment is likely to secure significant societal impact and productivity growth. The study’s methods are being considered as best practices for integrating data visualisation in social care.
Future Objectives:
- Evidence-Based Insights: TPRP and Dr Michela Tinelli are showcasing preliminary findings that demonstrate the societal benefits of improving access to treatment, including economic growth and enhanced community well-being.
- Inspirational Stories: TPRP are presenting personal stories of recovery that illustrate the real-life impact of The People’s Recovery Project, inspiring attendees to support similar initiatives. Community members act as beacons of hope for people at early stages of recovery journeys.
- Collaboration for Change: TPRP, CPEC and LSE Innovation emphasise the importance of cross-sector collaboration—between policymakers, researchers, practitioners, and community members—in driving effective recovery solutions.
- Continuous Insight Production: Through this ongoing partnership we aim to highlight the need for ongoing production of insights to better inform decision-making for policy and practice, ensuring that delivery and evaluation go hand in hand.
Conclusion
The CQE team has evaluated the economic, social, and health impacts of homelessness and addiction, as well as the personal experiences of affected individuals. The team developed evaluation metrics to analyse and visualise data, focusing on public resource usage (healthcare, social care, housing, mental health, and criminal justice), work productivity, and quality of life before and after recovery. The analysis compares data from one year prior to recovery with data from the last year, based on 10 individual cases.
Given the dual challenges of homelessness and addiction, TPRP members face issues that differ significantly from those of other populations. Consequently, the LSE team designed an evaluation framework that, in addition to focusing on cost analysis, also gathered information on backgrounds, such as adverse childhood experiences, and personal well-being, health status, housing outcomes and more.
The preliminary findings support the potential for significant societal gains through targeted residential treatment for homelessness and addiction. Continued research is needed to evaluate the full impact of the TPRP model. Future efforts will focus on expanding the sample size, improving demographic diversity, and conducting long-term follow-ups. Following this insightful testing and feasibility study we are now progressing towards generating evidence for a future longitudinal study evaluating the impact of residential treatment and sustained recovery for people experiencing homelessness and addiction.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Alesh Compton for creating films in collaboration with TPRP community members. This work was supported by NIHR SSCR and LSE Innovation funds.
Ed Addison
Co-founder, The People’s Recovery Project
