Hello and welcome to The Hoarding Hub: Professionals
The Professionals Hub is for those working with people affected by complex living environments, including hoarding behaviours.
Here you’ll find information about my work, including consultancy and training, alongside free guides and resources to support professionals responding to hoarding with confidence.
Rachel Murphy - Complex Living Environments Consultant
About me...
I’m Rachel Murphy, a Hoarding Specialist, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) Practitioner, and Complex Living Environments Consultant with a background in psychology and education. I work with housing organisations, social care teams, and government agencies to support professionals responding to hoarding and complex living situations.
My professional career began in education, where I built a strong reputation as a practitioner, curriculum developer, and advocate for inclusive learning within the local authority. Throughout this time, my work was heavily influenced by my interest in psychology and understanding the behavioural and emotional factors that affect how people live and function in their environments.
In 2021, I established my own environmental services business, which quickly developed into a specialist biohazard and complex property remediation service. Through this work, I saw first-hand how deeply our living environments are connected to mental health, trauma, and life circumstances, particularly in cases involving hoarding and self-neglect.
Today, I support organisations and frontline professionals through training programmes, consultancy, and guidance on complex living cases, helping teams develop confident, compassionate, and practical responses to situations that often involve multiple agencies and significant environmental risks.
My work focuses on helping professionals better understand behaviour, manage environmental risk, and implement trauma-informed, person-centred approaches that protect both individuals and communities.
Alongside direct work with individuals, I provide consultancy and workforce training to housing providers, social care services, and government bodies seeking to strengthen their response to hoarding and complex living environments.
Through my guides, training, and consultancy work, my aim is to bridge the gap between psychological understanding and frontline practice, equipping professionals with the knowledge and tools needed to create meaningful and sustainable change.
The Hoarding Hub - Frontline Skills Academy
Our Series of Online Learning Opportunities
Free Guide: Opening The Door: Building Trust
Opening the Door: Building Trust is a free guide for frontline professionals working with individuals living with hoarding behaviours and other complex living environments. It offers practical insights and conversational approaches to help build trust, reduce resistance, and support respectful, person-centred engagement during home visits.
Professional Practice Resources
The Hoarding Hub provides a growing collection of practical tools and guidance for professionals working with hoarding behaviours and complex living environments.
These resources are designed to support housing providers, local authorities, safeguarding teams, environmental health officers, fire services, and frontline practitioners who are responding to situations where environmental risk, vulnerability, and hoarding behaviours intersect.
The tools focus on practical engagement, risk awareness, and multi-agency collaboration, helping professionals take balanced, trauma-informed approaches while managing safety concerns.
All resources are provided as free professional tools to support better understanding and more effective responses to hoarding and complex living environments.
Embedding Lived Experience into Hoarding Policy & Practice
A Practical Resource for your staff to audit your policies
This fillable self-assessment tool from The Hoarding Hub helps housing, social care and frontline professionals review whether their approach to hoarding is truly person-centred, trauma-informed and shaped by lived experience.
It supports teams to reflect on how they engage individuals, measure progress beyond “stuff removed”, and build approaches that lead to safer, more sustainable outcomes.
Designed for use in team meetings, case reviews and policy development, this resource helps shift practice from reactive and enforcement-led to engagement-led and effective over the long term.
If you’re looking to strengthen your approach or need support embedding this into practice, get in touch to arrange a conversation.
FREe guide: From clean to crisis - for cleaning professional
Cleaning professionals sometimes walk into homes expecting a routine clean, only to discover environments affected by severe clutter, hoarding behaviours, or signs of self neglect.
In these moments, knowing how to respond — both professionally and compassionately — can be challenging.
This free guide from The Hoarding Hub provides practical conversational tools, warning signs to look out for, and simple guidance to help cleaning professionals navigate complex situations with confidence.
professional testimonials
