Why people in the revolving door don’t engage – and what makes them start
There is general agreement that people struggling with substance use, mental health crises or entrapment in cycles of crisis and crime need help from services to recover.
But often, those people in this very situation do not engage with the services – statutory or voluntary – they are offered. While it is easy to dismiss this as indicative of lack of interest or motivation, the true picture is often more complex.
We hear time and time again from our members that behind every “missed appointment” is a story of fear, fatigue, and unmet need. They show that people in the revolving door often need services to take a different approach in order to help them engage. So Revolving Doors are taking a deep look at engagement through all of our forums.
At our general forum many participants said that when they were trapped in substance use, homelessness or crisis, simply surviving took priority. When you’re hungry, unsafe or withdrawing, keeping an appointment can feel impossible. Engagement, they agreed, starts with stability – a roof, food, and safety. Without those, no one can move forward.
It’s purely down to addiction. I did not want to [engage]. It was the last thing on my mind. I was feeling ill, withdrawing, no phone. Life was unmanageable. I wanted to hide. I ghosted everything when I was using. But then, you are not told about rehab, AA, fellowships. Things that they could tell you about they don’t.
Years of negative experiences with services – from being punished for missed appointments to feeling ignored or judged – have eroded trust. People told us they often felt that services acted on them, not with them. Rebuilding that trust takes time, compassion, and a genuine commitment to listening and following through.
I never trusted probation, police, courts, social services, health sector etc – ‘reason behind all of that… they failed me, every service that I’ve been through I’ve never put any trust in them… I’d go to probation, miss an appointment because I couldn’t get childcare, I’d be breached, I’d be punished.
Many participants said they were more likely to open up to someone who had “been there.” Staff with lived experience can help break down stigma and build empathy. Representation matters. Services that reflect the communities they serve are more likely to earn trust.
It depends on who you’re dealing with, if someone looks very high authority, you might not want to open up to them, if you speak to someone with lived experience you may be more likely to want to share.
I looked at staff in authority and thought, ‘You haven’t been where I’ve been.’
Rigid systems and zero-tolerance policies were major barriers. Missing a five-minute appointment – often because of childcare or travel – could mean sanctions or being removed from programmes. For women, fear of child removal was a powerful reason to stay away. The message was clear: services need to understand that non-engagement is often a symptom of struggle, not defiance.
Women are frightened to engage fully because they worry it will trigger social service involvement.
We also heard that people often don’t engage with services because they carry a deep-rooted mix of anger, fear and mistrust, built up through negative experiences with authority and the very systems that were meant to help them. This concurs with what we heard in the research for the Preventing The Revolving Door report where we heard that fear of social services, rooted in contact with social workers in childhood, goes on to drive so much generalised mistrust of “the system” for those in the revolving doors group.
For someone who feels constantly punished or misunderstood, professionals like social workers, police or probation staff can come to represent control and oppression rather than support. This leads to a defensive attitude, albeit one rooted in self-protection. The hostility becomes a shield to hide vulnerability and fear of being hurt again. When a person feels they’ve lost respect for themselves and sees the world as hostile, rejecting help feels safer than risking rejection. As a result, disengagement becomes a form of survival rather than stubbornness.
I hated everything. I was very angry. I was violent. My attitude was arrogant. I saw jail as an occupational hazard. I had no respect for myself or anything else. I had this face – a don’t talk to me face, I was hateful. I was in a bad way. I held a lot of hate inside me. I passionately hated Social Service, the Police, Probation – anyone in authority. I was horrible but I was full of fear. I looked at people as the enemy.
Participants said they valued workers who genuinely cared and who listened, taking time and treating them as people, not cases. Short, transactional appointments left them feeling unseen.
When you have a worker going through the motions it’s a waste of both of our time.
Travel costs, lack of childcare and inflexible appointment times all make engagement harder. Simple changes such as evening or weekend sessions, child-friendly spaces or help with travel could make a big difference.
Many people described frustration at having to repeat their story to multiple agencies. Better communication and collaboration between services would reduce repetition, prevent mistakes and make people feel truly supported.
That people in the revolving door have experiences of trauma is well known. But, sadly, all too often services aren’t trauma informed and do not have staff with the experience or time to unpack the trauma that underlies challenging behaviours. Often in choosing not to engage people are taking a rational decision to protect themselves because in doing do they risk exposing themselves to further trauma in revealing their past to people not equipped to help them work through it. Rather than blaming those who disengage we need to really examine whether services have been fair in expecting to engage and whether they have truly provided a safe environment for them to do so.
When people feel understood and respected, and are given a real chance to rebuild, they engage. The ingredients of good engagement include trauma-informed, personalised support; empathy before enforcement; early help and diversion at the point of crisis; opportunities for purpose such as training, activity, and hope; and lived experience and peer roles in every service.
The forum ended with a sentiment that sums it all up:
We need care and kindness. You need to feel appreciated and wanted. Give people a purpose. You’ve got to want to be ready, but have some humanity. Make me feel like a person. Take me for a coffee.
Engagement isn’t just about compliance, it’s also about connection. Services need to meet people where they are – not where they would like them to be. When people are met with empathy, flexibility and belief in their potential, they can respond. And that’s when real change begins.
