A Black Country-wide conference around hoarding behaviours saw professionals hearing people’s experiences and pledging to work together to further improve support on offer.
The ‘Behind Closed Doors’ conference coincided with National Hoarding Awareness Week 2025 (Monday 12 May to Friday 16 May).
Working in partnership, Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton Safeguarding Adults Boards held the event at Walsall FC’s Bescot Stadium.
Professionals from a range of organisations across the Black Country attended the conference to further develop their knowledge and skills around hoarding behaviours, share best practice and hear from people who exhibit hoarding behaviours and their experiences.
Ian Porter, a psychologist and co-ordinator of the Northwest Hoarders Helping Hoarders Network, led the day, discussing what hoarding is and isn’t, factors that professionals face when working with people with hoarding behaviours, and support groups and why they are needed.
Sandwell Hoarding Improvement Programme (SHIP)* gave an overview of its work, and the conference also included workshops that focussed on mental health, stigma and trauma.
There was a question-and-answer session with people with lived experience and an extract from Landfill of Memories performed by Susana Amato. Landfill of Memories is an autobiographical performance about hoarding and has recently premiered in London.
Councillor Jackie Taylor, Sandwell Council’s Cabinet Member for Adult Services, Health and Wellbeing, opened the conference on Thursday (15 May) on behalf of the four Black Country councils.
She said: “I know that how we respond to people and work with people with hoarding behaviours is a national issue, but it is great to see we are taking a lead together locally in the Black Country to make positive changes.
“We are committed to co-production in Sandwell and across the Black Country, working closely together as organisations and with people who have experienced hoarding behaviours to develop support available. A good example of this is the way we have developed peer support networks in Sandwell.
“We need to listen to and hear the voices of people with experience of hoarding. We want to do better and craft solutions that work and do not further traumatise or stigmatise people.”
Richard Parry, Chair of Sandwell Safeguarding Adults Board, which facilitated the conference, said: “It is really positive to be working with people with lived experience and partner organisations from across both Sandwell and the wider Black Country to run this event.
“This event has supported people to think about how to take a person-centred approach to hoarding, starting with what is important to individuals and thinking about how the wider safeguarding system can best support them.
“In Sandwell, we are committed to Making Safeguarding Personal by understanding what is important to an individual, their wider life and history and then co-producing solutions with them.”