By the tenant involvement team
This month Rachel attended the TPAS Northeast Members event along with Nicola Harper and Jordan Hart, both council tenants, this was held and hosted by Connect Housing in Dewsbury. It was a good turnout with over 40 attendees from as far at Newcastle in the North to Hull in the East, it was a good mix of tenants and landlords. Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council, Wakefield Metropolitan District Council and Hull City Council, who were also there, all have received the Exemplar TPAS Accreditation.
The event started with a TPAS Talk, this was news for their members and a roundup of what is happening nationally, and the training TPAS has to offer.
Sally Butterworth from Regulator of Social Housing then gave an informative and insightful presentation on the latest regulatory developments and people were given an opportunity to ask questions.
The landlord host, Connect Housing, gave us a unique insight their successful engagement practices. This included a “Boot Camp” session they held which expanded on their scrutiny panel and how they got other people involved.
After lunch we participated in an interactive session where we shared success stories from different organisations and shared challenges i.e. engaging hard to reach communities, digital barriers etc. This session really made us realise the fabulous work we already do, the success of it and how it makes a difference.
Stop Social Housing Stigma then spoke about the latest progress and upcoming initiatives and explained how to get involved. They are working with other organisations including TPAS and have launched a Tackling Stigma Journey Planner. Many tenants feel like second class citizens and this needs to change. They would like to get as many members as possible signed up to support this.
To finish the event there were some Engagement Heroes Recognition Awards to celebrate the incredible achievements of those volunteers making a different in tenant engagement. It was fabulous to hear that both Nicola and Jordan had received an award, which was very much deserved for them both.
It was great event very informative and beneficial; we were glad we had attended and look forward to the next one.