December 2023: Extra Care Court Newsletter

Thank you to everyone who joined my first ‘Grab a Cuppa with Kris’ session on 15 November. It was a great opportunity to share key updates with you and answer any questions you had. For those who couldn’t attend, we recorded the session and it is available to watch on YouTube using this URL: https://youtu.be/Qgoh-ihFobM

I appreciate that not everyone has access to a device they can join webinars on, so as promised in the last court newsletter, here is a summary of what I touched on during the session.  

Resident survey feedback 

In the summer, we asked for your feedback through our Resident Survey, which included Tenant Satisfaction Measures, and we now have the results. Overall, 87 percent of residents from Extra Care were satisfied with the service they received and there were lots of positive comments about residents feeling safe and secure. However, we recognise that there are areas where we need to make improvements and we will be looking at the common themes and how we can address them.  

Going forward schemes with ten or more responses will receive their own set of results and you should see these in your scheme very soon. We’re also going to share what we are doing in response to your comments, so you are kept in the loop. For those schemes that had less than ten responses, we will be working with them to help improve their engagement because it’s important we get as much feedback as possible.  

Service charges consultations  

These are taking place now, and you should have been invited to a meeting with either your Regional Manager or your Housing and Care Manager to discuss service charges. This year we will be talking about techniques to help reduce costs in your scheme as well as the option to reduce the service charges next by using the surplus from this year’s charges. 

I encourage you all to get involved in these discussions where you can as they will influence next year’s budget.  

Extra Care Resident Forum 

One of our residents, Ian has set up an Extra Care resident ambassador forum - a group of resident ambassadors from schemes across the country. They’ve been helping us improve communication with residents, provide more clarity of service charges, review the welcome packs to help our new residents navigate their first few weeks with Housing 21 and much more.  

If you are part of a Resident Association, please get in touch via email: Kris.peach@housing21.org.uk. The Extra Care Resident Forum would love to speak to you about the challenges you are seeing and ensure your voice is represented back to Housing 21.   

In the summer we carried out our National Residents’ Survey to find out what you think about your home and the services you receive. Here are some of the top line results:

• The overall response rate was 57 percent
• The overall satisfaction rate for living with Housing 21 was 86 percent
• The overall satisfaction rate for those living in one of our Extra Care schemes was 87 percent

Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond, it is greatly appreciated so that we can use this information to improve the services we provide our residents.

If you would like to see the results specifically for your scheme, please speak to your scheme manager or contact Research@Housing21.org.uk.

In September we shared a survey with you asking for your thoughts on the Housing 21 website and any suggestions you had for a new website which we’re hoping to launch in late 2024. We promised that we would share the results with you, so here are the headlines: 

• Quality of information: Most respondents (51 percent) gave a score of four or five (out of five) for quality of information on the website, indicating you feel information on the website is ‘good’ or ‘very good’. Less than 10 percent gave a negative score of one or two. 
• Overall experience: 40 percent of respondents gave a score of four or five, rating the overall experience as ‘good’ or ‘very good’. Just under 50 percent gave it an average score for experience (three out of five). 
• Most visited area: ‘Resident information’, with over 75 percent of respondents visiting this section of the website. This is closely followed by ‘News’. 
• Ease of use: More than 50 percent of respondents find it ‘easy’ or ‘very easy’ to use. 
• Main area of improvement: Overall user experience, which included better search functionality. 
• Most desired new service: Ability to ‘view your rent/service charge statement/balance’. 

Thank you to everyone who took the time to share your views with us, it really is appreciated. This feedback will help us as we move into the next phase of the website project. We will be in touch again in the new year when we have more updates to share with you. 

For those of you that haven’t heard of, or met me, I’m Tina Wathern and my role is Resident Engagement Lead for Housing 21.  

Over the last few months, I’ve been working with residents to set up new forums across Extra Care and Retirement Living and we now have five resident forums meeting virtually every eight weeks.

In addition to the Retirement Living Regional Engagement Groups, the groups are: the Extra Care Resident Forum, the Retirement Living Engagement Panel and the groups for minority communities (LGBT+, Disability, and REACH – Race, Equity and Cultural Heritage). 

What’s the purpose of the forums?                   

Central to Housing 21’s ethos is putting residents at the heart of what we do, and the forums are one of the ways in which we hear and listen to the voices of our residents.  

Amongst the many lively discussions that have taken place, the forums have discussed: 

• What is GDPR? 
• Service charges 
• The Social Housing Regulation Act  
• Website design  

The forums are also a great place for consultation and so far, have been consulted and made comment on the Repairs Policy and the Aids and Adaptations policy. They’ve also been discussing (with the Marketing and Communication Team) the website and helped to design the website survey.  

Members from Retirement Living and Extra Care have got together to start designing a welcome pack for new residents about Resident Engagement and how to get involved. 

Housing 21 employees have visited the groups to discuss:

• The Birdie system (Extra Care rostering system)
• Development plans 
• The Social Housing Regulation Act and Consumer Standards 
• Communications  

Future plans include the Retirement Living Engagement Panel visiting a new scheme in Doncaster in the spring, and colleagues from the new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Team and Data Protection and Governance Team presenting to the groups. 

Members from both Retirement Living and Extra Care attended webinars provided by Four Million Homes about what to expect from a Resident Panel. 

What’s it like to be on a Resident Engagement Forum? 

I thought I would hand that over to a member of the Extra Care Forum, Ian, who has written about what it’s like to be involved. 

Ian – Extra Care Forum member  

“Since becoming involved with the Extra Care Forum and working more closely with Housing 21, I have become much more aware of the things that affect us as residents and staff. I have been surprised, how, no matter how different we are, at its simplest, we all want the same thing, somewhere nice to live with security, safety and to understand how and why decisions are made around us, and most importantly, what it will cost and why. The opportunity to meet and share ideas, experiences and views with a wide range of people through the Forum makes it a great place to learn and share what others have done in different situations or problems. Being able to then take those ideas, comments and suggestions to Housing 21 and know that we are taken seriously, makes us want to do more.”

If you think the forums are something you’d like to be involved with, please email me Tina.wathern@housing21.org.uk or speak to your scheme manager. 

It’s that time of year again where we celebrate our fabulous contractors!  

Is there a contractor who has gone ‘above and beyond’ at your scheme? If so, we want to hear about them!   

We’d like to celebrate the many examples of times when our contractors have gone ‘above and beyond’ over the past year, to deliver quality services in resident homes, and to create an opportunity to say ‘thank you’.   

The survey will open on Tuesday 2 January 2024 and will remain open until 31 January 2024.  

Once the survey closes, all contractors who have been nominated will receive a ‘Housing 21 Outstanding Contractor of the Year’ certificate in Spring 2024 on your behalf, as a token of appreciation for their hard work over the last financial year.  

As part of our work to promote Housing 21 as a great place to live, we want to share the stories of our residents to highlight the diverse groups of people we have living in our schemes. We’re collecting stories and sharing them as case studies on our website, social media channels such as Facebook and Instagram, and in printed materials.  

Over the next month, our focus will be on three key themes to tie in with upcoming awareness days:

• Community living
• Socialising
• Friendships

If you have a story to share about one of these three themes – maybe you have made new friendships whilst living at Housing 21 or take part in communal activities, we would love to hear from you!

Each of us have a story to tell, and we want to share yours. Contact us by emailing: Communications@housing21.org.uk or speak to your scheme manager and ask them to get in touch with us. 

Have you had a positive experience with one of our employees?  

Perhaps they have supported you with claiming benefits, or generally gone above and beyond to support you? 

If so, we would love to hear from you and to share your story to make sure our people are recognised for Making a Difference (MAD). 

Please send your stories to: MAD@housing21.org.uk 

Tune in to 21 Talks; a podcast showing that at every age, everyone has important stories to tell and opinions to share.

We have episodes on sustainability, the Extra Care Academy and inclusivity and financial wellbeing, featuring our wonderful Housing 21 employees and residents!

Have you listened to our latest episode on activities to positively impact your wellbeing? 

Across Housing 21 we often talk about wellbeing and the importance of it, but what does it actually mean for residents living in our schemes?

Local Housing Manager Laura Gilling is passionate about the benefits physical activity can have on people’s wellbeing. In this episode of 21 Talks, she sits down with residents Zohra and Austin to find out what activities positively contribute to their wellbeing, as well as advice they’d give to other residents who are looking to try something new.

Stream now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or on our website.

If you have an idea for a topic we could discuss in the next episode and would like to feature in our 21 Talks podcast, please contact communications@housing21.org.uk

Trustpilot is an independent website where you can review organisations and share your experience. We value your feedback and know that potential future residents want to know what it is like to live at a Housing 21 property. You can help with this by leaving a review on the Trustpilot website to let people know about your experience.

Please visit: https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.housing21.org.uk to visit the Housing 21 Trustpilot page and leave your review.  

A reminder that all residents should now be testing their own pendant alarm once a month. This arrangement has the added benefit of helping residents to build confidence in using the equipment. Please ensure you test your pendant alarm from inside your accommodation, not in the communal areas. 

New residents, during their tenancy sign-up, are informed that it is a resident’s responsibility to carry out a monthly pendant test. However, where a Scheme Manager believes a resident is unable to test their pendant, or they have no immediate family members to support them, they will carry out the test. If you have any queries or concerns about pendants / pendant testing, please contact your local manager.