At Christian Action, we have many opportunities for tenants to get involved in shaping and improving our services.
Our aim is to ensure that, as a tenant, your voice is heard and considered in improvements we make to our services and policies.
Your opinions and views are valuable to us, therefore we have various opportunities for you to get involved in. Please see below for more information.
Background
Whilst resident engagement and involvement has always been an important strand of service delivery for social housing providers, this is now, more relevant given the statutory requirement to deliver against new regulatory standards, as set out in the Consumer Standards 2024.
CAHA have always provided engagement and involvement opportunities in past years delivering a significant number activities across our services. This demonstrates a positive commitment to listening to tenants’ views and using this to inform services, providing employment, education and training opportunities and activities to reduce social isolation. Through the year 2022/23, we delivered over 70 different engagement and involvement activities.
Whilst we have delivered such activities, we had already identified the need to have a more formal framework for delivering this vital area of work. This is a view which has since been reinforced with the new Transparency, Influence and Accountability Standard. This standard sets expectations for social housing landlords to provide choice, information and communication that is appropriate to the diverse needs of their tenants. It requires a clear approach to complaints and a wide range of opportunities for them to have influence and be involved.
In response to this, CAHA have developed a new Community Engagement and Resident Involvement Strategy, which is aligned to the key purpose set out in our Strategic Plan and our corporate 4C’s values to Connect, Care, Commit and Champion.
To find out what resident engagement and involvement means to our residents, we have co-created the strategy with our residents through a consultation exercise and thank you to all the residents who participated.
If you would like to have a read of our new Community Engagement and Resident Involvement Strategy, the link is below.
CommunityEngagement&ResidentInvolvementStrategy2024.pdf [pdf] 3MB
Going Forward
We have now developed our action plan based on the feedback received and has been included within the strategy, any further tenant participation will be welcomed.
Please email Sean for ways to get involved.
Complete Surveys and Questionnaires
By giving us your opinion we can shape and improve services that directly affect you.
Estate Champion
This involves a monthly estate inspection with a simple form to complete and send back to us. You will be looking at the quality of the cleaning and gardening and reporting any communal repairs. We gift estate champions a £10 voucher for ever 2 inspections they complete.
Community Days
Come along to our community days or nominate the estate where you live for one. We are planning our next community day, details to follow.
Selection and Interview Panels
Tenants can be involved in interview process for the selection and appointing of new contractors, security and concierge and members of Christian Action staff.
Interested in participating in any of the above?
Hi residents, let me introduce myself. I am Sean Andrews, your new Resident Involvement Manager. Let me tell you why I am here and what I pledge to do for you.
In my strategic role, I will be working closely with the senior management team here at CAHA and will play a pivotal role in enhancing the organisation's relationship with you, our residents.
With a focus on resident engagement, I will endeavour to ensure that your voices, needs, and aspirations are not only heard but also met. By fostering open communication channels and meaningful interactions. I intend to facilitate initiatives that strengthen the bond between your communities and Christian Action Housing.
I will do this by encouraging you, our residents, to take part in some important and strategic work behind the scenes like taking part in interview process, support in policy writing, along with some fun activities like fun days, trips along with becoming estate champions, just to name a few ways I am looking for your support.
You can contact me directly via email, seanandrews@christianaction.org.uk or 07908-204-665.
I look forward to hearing from you and seeing you.
Sean Andrews (he/him)
Resident Involvement Manager