The International Community Responses to Hoarding Workshop will be held in the capital on October 24 and will bring together global experts on hoarding disorder and multi-agency professionals.

Facilitated discussions will be led by Dr Christiana Bratiotis and Dr Sheila Woody, professors in social work and psychology at the University of British Columbia, who will speak about best practice in implementing community-based interventions.

She said: “Addressing health and safety issues related to hoarding behaviour is challenging and not a job that can be done by a single person or even a single organisation.”

Hoarding is a hidden and often misunderstood mental health issue that impacts on people who hoard, their families, communities and local services as diverse as housing, health, social work and fire and rescue. It is estimated that as many as one in 40 adults is affected by the condition, which is recognised by World Health Organisation as a distinct mental disorder.

The event has been organised by Linda Fay who leads the Hoarding Academy – a UK organisation established to offer access to training and good practice guidance to professionals, family members and others dealing with hoarding. She added: “Hoarding is a significant issue for many people and organisations across the UK and we need to share our collective intelligence to inform new ways of working better together to create multi-disciplinary solutions for extreme hoarding situations,”.

“Too often, the approach from public bodies is ‘clear outs’ (sometimes enforced) of people’s homes which, as well as being extremely distressing, are harmful to those affected and are a complete waste of public money. With a 100 per cent recidivism rate, it is neither an efficient nor effective intervention.

“At the conference, participants will be amongst the first recipients outside of Canada to obtain a copy of the new Home Environment Assessment Tool for Hoarding (HEATH©). This has been created by the Canadian university’s Centre for Collaborative Research on Hoarding for providers from diverse disciplines to communicate more effectively and plan hoarding interventions based on shared priorities with people who hoard.

“There is no simple solution to hoarding, but all the evidence shows that collaborative approaches are the most effective, and this is what we will explore at the conference,” Linda concludes.

Last month, the Hoarding Academy together with social services charity Iriss kick-started a new Scottish Hoarding Taskforce to bring together organisations from around the country to develop a co-ordinated national approach.

Already the initiative has the early backing of Stirling and Clackmannanshire, Pan-Lanarkshire and Glasgow Health and Social Care Partnerships, Scottish Care, and the Care Inspectorate alongside the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, the Chartered Institute of Housing and the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations.

To book tickets, and find out more about the International Community Responses to Hoarding Workshop programme, please visit the website.