Fighting fuel poverty - let Care & Repair help you

According to latest figures, there are almost 2,000 excess winter deaths a year in Wales. We hear the term ‘excess winter deaths’ quite frequently, but it’s hard to imagine how and why this can happen.

As an Affordable Warmth Caseworker for Care & Repair Cardiff, visiting older people on a daily basis in their homes, unfortunately I can see how this happens. When reporting on this issue, the press might conjure up images of older people with blankets around their knees, shivering in front of a gas fire. This is not the case for the majority of older people, but for some this is actually their reality.

I saw a lady recently in Riverside who was wearing a dressing gown over her clothes to keep warm every time I visited her. I saw a gentleman in Canton who wore a woolly hat and refused to put the heating on unless it snowed because he was scared of high gas bills. I saw a lady in Grangetown who had no form of heating whatsoever in the house, had never had any, and cried every time I visited as she couldn’t face another winter living that way. Unfortunately, this is how some older people live, and it is easy to see how their health and wellbeing can be affected.

Many older people live on low incomes, have little or no savings and live in homes that don’t suit their needs. Quite often, they live in the family home that they have lived in for decades which they now find that they can’t afford to maintain or heat adequately. There are often problems with the heating system, windows and damp, along with stairs and bathrooms that can’t be managed. Many people are just used to managing and used to be being cold; they’re not aware of the damage it could be doing to their health or where to go for help. Poor physical health and mental health problems can also complicate the issue and make it difficult for people to find and access help, or even to face having anything done to their home.

There is help out there. We can help people to find grants to improve their home and heating and support them through the process of having any work done. We can help people to take control of their bills by looking at changing supplier or making sure they are on the best tariff. We also make sure that people are claiming all the benefits they are entitled to which can vastly increase their income and make life a little easier. We’ve also helped people to clear gas and electricity debts.

I think it will be difficult to find a long term solution to fuel poverty. Grants for new boilers are excellent in the short term, but what happens in 10 years time when that boiler is inefficient again? It’s not a long term solution to the problem. We hear that insulating our homes is the best solution, but most people have had cavity wall and loft insulation fitted and accessing more complicated specialist measures is difficult and very expensive.

One thing I have come to learn in this job is the importance of planning for your old age. Older people should be able to live out their later years in comfort without worrying about living in cold homes which don’t suit their needs. It’s of benefit to everyone of any age to think about maintaining their homes, having appliances regularly serviced and using energy as efficiently as possible. These are all things that Care & Repair can assist with, so I would advise anyone who needs advice to contact us on 0300 111 3333.


Beatrice Roberts
Caseworker, Care & Repair in Cardiff

Fighting Fuel Poverty

The impact of fuel poverty goes beyond financial consequences. Living in fuel poverty can affect people’s health, increasing the risk of common ailments such as colds, flu and respiratory infections including bronchitis. This has resulted in worryingly high excess winter death levels in Wales, with older people particularly susceptible.

There are indirect effects: stress in children and adults, long-term depression and anxiety, social exclusion, damaged health and life chances for families and individuals and reduced educational attainment.

Moreover, there are broader budget implications for education, employment and health services in Wales.

You are in fuel poverty if 10% or more of your household income is spent on energy.

The causes of fuel poverty are equally complex, requiring a person centred approach alongside energy efficiency measures.

In 2012, 30% of households in Wales were living in fuel poverty, equating to 386,000 homes. Nearly 85% of these are vulnerable households, containing a child, older person or someone with a disability or chronic illness.

Energy efficiency is not the only way of helping fuel poor households and further opportunities exist, including helping people to find the best energy deal and to maximise their income.

True partnership working is key to finding those who are hardest to reach, ensuring that they receive all the help they are entitled to and developing solutions to meet their needs and situation.

No one agency can provide all the solutions to a complex problem affecting people with diverse circumstances. However, a central movement such as Care & Repair Cymru can guide people in the right direction to obtain the help they need.

Last year, Care & Repair agencies gave energy advice to 1,800 older people and 1,000 older people who had damp in their home. Amongst other things, they can advise on whether you are eligible for a £140 Warm Home Discount on your electricity bill and how, as a pensioner, you can join your energy supplier’s Priority Services Register.

If you require help or are unsure about the help you can receive, then contact Care & Repair for free advice on 0300 111 3333.

Mark Isherwood AM 

Chair of the Cross Party Group on Fuel Poverty sponsored by NEA Cymru and Citizens Advice Cymru 

Every traveller has a tale to tell

'Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colours. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.' I love that quote from Terry Pratchett - I'm not sure if it’s true for every traveller though.

Summing up over 5 months of travelling in this blog post would be difficult, but I think it's fair to say that a trip which saw me and my girlfriend Fiona visit Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Beijing, Japan, the USA and Canada was certainly a trip we’ll never forget. 

The purpose of my sabbatical leave was to travel and gain life experiences. Whilst travelling, I couldn’t help but notice some projects and ideas that I feel are worth exploring in my job role at CHC. For example, Portland (Oregon) in the USA which has earned its reputation as one of the greenest cities in the USA. This reputation is enhanced by information which reveals that Portland, for example, uses 20 percent more renewable energy than the national average and it was one of the first cities to ban plastic bags. Of course, there was some bad practice as well, but I won't pick out anything in particular for this blog post.

I think travelling has made me realise how different countries might approach certain things differently. It’s an obvious statement in a way, but actually seeing good and bad practice around the world was very interesting. However, I’ve only scratched the surface as there’s so much of the world that I haven’t seen. 

Now I’m back at CHC, one of the priorities for me has to be further exploring the potential for European funding for renewable energy and energy efficiency funding in order to help get a project bid in place. I’m planning to be out and about at conferences and meetings trying to catch up with people and find out who’s been up to what in the past 6 months or so, so if you see me, don’t be afraid to say hello! 

Ko Phi Phi, Thailand

Shea Jones
Energy and Sustainability Officer      

Positive ageing - bucking the trend?

This week is Positive Ageing Week, which also includes Older People’s Day today, (1 October). The narrative around ageing and particularly around the substantial increase in the number of older people in the coming decades is often focused on the challenges of increasing demand for services and the fact that, across public services, we aren’t ready to accommodate this need.

At Care & Repair’s recent Annual Conference, a consultant from Powys Teaching Health Board (Prof. Bim Bhowmick) spoke about caring for older people with more acute needs in the community. One of his main points, which really resonated with me, was in saying that an increase in the older population doesn’t have to mean greater demand… more need… pressure on hospital services. He’d been leading on a consultant led “virtual ward” service aimed at keeping older people out of hospital. Through this he demonstrated a few things, namely:

• Consultant-led community services for older people will reduce attendance at A&E and instances of delayed transfer of care.
• Services configured to intervene at the time, before someone is admitted to hospital for further checks etc., is by far the most important time to intervene. 
• Ensuring that there's an understanding of what can be provided in the community by NHS staff and other stakeholders is key for General Practitioners. 
• The home is often an appropriate place to provide interventions for people with acute needs. 
• If we make these changes on an all-Wales level, we can realise a future where even though there’s a large population of older people, better service focus along with changes in lifestyle and behaviour can combine to offset the type of demand being predicted at present. 

The way we understand housing in the context of positive ageing is also very important. All too often this is a bit one dimensional – along the lines of poor housing leads to poor health. Clearly this is a really important part of understanding the impact housing can have, and the implications of poor housing. But an over-focus on the physical environment may lead us to overlook much of what it means to age positively. Housing certainly underpins this, but (for example) opportunities to socialise, learn new skills, inform and participate in local and national debate, spend more time with family, work or volunteer and travel the world can all have a huge bearing on how 'positively' we age. 

For the housing sector, it’s about understanding how we can best support this shift in emphasis and if there’s capacity to provide staff, share expertise or facilitate patient, carer or family engagement in building a shared understanding of how we support people in truly holistic way. 

Matthew Kennedy
Policy Officer: Care, Support and Health

Raising aspirations, building experience and promoting education...

Raising Aspirations, Building Experience and Promoting Education... these terms seem like something taken from a policy document or political manifesto which sound good in principle, but realising the ambitions behind them may take years.

In Monmouthshire Housing (MHA), it was these very terms that set the thematic direction in 2011 of the MHA 'Work and Skills Wise Service'. So 3 years on, what is being offered on a daily or weekly basis in delivering this aspirational service?

I guess it's a range of tools, a belief in everyone we see, a needs-led approach, staff with bags of passion and an unwavering belief that we will get there, taking one step at a time!


Our tools include:

· Individual action plans used to define real goals and small steps to achieve them,
· Access to a range of formal and informal courses at reduced or no cost via our partners,
· Access to all areas in MHA to volunteer, the allocation of a mentor and volunteering skills log,
· Access to a bursary scheme to cover costs which reduce barriers to moving towards employment.
· Self employment support offered in partnership with Centre for Business,
· A tailored six week programme for interview skills, searching the job market, CV writing and
· A partnership approach to the work, working with JCP, colleges and private sector organisations.


Although the service is an employment and skills service, it is delivered holistically and caters for Financial Inclusion issues. We offer better off work calculations and tips to manage money better once in work. I feel that this is imperative when we consider what a huge transition it is for people who have not held down employment previously.

Digital Inclusion is also a cross-cutting theme embedded in our service where we offer free laptops to service users on a loan basis and training on how to use social media effectively. Demand for digital inclusion support is high amongst the elderly but our experience shows that working age tenants present challenges to engagement that requires a carrot approach. This incentive/carrot provides, in my view, access to a previously closed door.

Link to DVD

While all of this is core funded, I'm always on the look out for external funding. The recent youth unemployment focus concentrated our energies on this agenda. Working in partnership with the Youth Service, we were successful with gaining external funding to target young NEETs. This gave us one of our biggest successes this year when the project went on to win the Youth Excellence Award in Employment and Training. Our employment and skills service in now being delivered via a former participant of this project.

Link to DVD

It is important to gather research and intelligence from service users about what we deliver and how it impacts on tenants' lives. This aspect is the 'value added' element that we have captured in our work. From this intelligence we have devised the Basic Skills Continuum which can basically demonstrate how, as the basic skills of individuals grow, so does their confidence. See the continuum below for a better understanding... it works for us!

In my view, I think it is important for the housing sector to develop action research projects that measure impact and learning. Are we not best placed to pioneer some potentially exciting Employment and Anti Poverty action research?

During Employment and Skills Week our team has been out delivering our services in clients' homes using the tools mentioned. Service users are almost always anxious to see the end goal. In many cases, it is employment opportunities or skill courses. To this end, each year MHA hosts the Monmouthshire Employment and Skills Fayre in partnership with the Monmouthshire BEST partnership, which has over 30 exhibitors in attendance from employers to training providers. Our last fayre drew in 440 local residents and offered real time opportunities. The importance of providing one to one support must also be met with access to opportunities. This shows service users that the end goal is now in sight and can be reached!

Our aspirational journey over the last 3 years has been frightfully busy and we've developed the service and tweaked it as we go along, learning lessons. 

Having supported 302 tenants with employment and training over the last 3 years, our outcomes include:

· 24 tenants into employment
· 22 young NEETs into employment
· 90 volunteering placements
· 92 tenants completed courses
· 36 currently enrolled on courses

I think we are beginning to feel that Building Experience, Promoting Education and Raising Aspirations were/are the right thematic principles for us to adopt.

The tailored joined-up approach, linking Financial and Digital Inclusion along with having the right people, with the right support, empowerment, encouraging ethos and delivering services from a needs perspective, are the ingredients in my view for a recipe for developing success...


Farida Aslam
Inclusion Coordinator, MHA

 

 

 

Employment and Skills Week - housing is a rare case of economic growth

Five years ago, i2i launched the first Can Do Toolkit in response to demand from the housing sector for practical help to capture the power of housing investment for local people and communities. It wasn’t a new idea. In my TPAS Cymru days, I had the privilege to be shown the work of the Young Builders Trust who, in partnership with Cardiff Community HA, had set up a training and employment project for young people who were then able to move into the homes they had helped build and refurbish. Many other associations and local authorities have been involved in similar schemes over the years.

The difference now is that this approach is standard for most housing associations and local authority landlords across Wales. Our annual survey published in March showed that the housing sector, by adopting the i2i approach, had created 5,135 jobs and training opportunities - 1,365 every year. And this happened at a time when the Welsh economy has struggled with recession. Compare housing with the steel industry, a sector close to my heart as the proud son of a steelworker. Tata Steel employs just under 4,000 at its Port Talbot works and is the largest single site employer in Wales. In July, a further 400 redundancies were announced. The contrast with housing is evident both in terms of the numbers and the direction of travel – housing is a rare case of economic growth.

The other good news is that where housing has led the way, others are following. The recently launched Community Benefits Guide from Value Wales (you can obtain a copy from communitybenefits@wales.gov.uk) has adopted the Can Do Toolkit ‘double default’ approach, making targeted recruitment and training the first ‘ask’. Our motivation remains to make real and lasting differences to people's lives. In the words of my i2i colleague Gareth Jones, community benefits are:

‘a long term solution to bring employment, economic and social gain to disadvantaged populations to help break the cycle of poverty and promote equality and inclusion.’

This is a long haul, made worse by welfare reform, austerity and more looming public service cuts. What can’t be denied is that housing continues to lead the way in the most challenging of times. CHC and its members, local authorities, contractors, small businesses and communities themselves have contributed to this success and learnt huge amounts in the process. We deserve a collective pat on the back. And then we need to refocus and move on, build on what we’ve achieved and keep our eye on the prize of long term, economically vibrant communities across Wales.

Keith Edwards, Director
CIH Cymru

This week is Employment and Skills Week, run by the Community Housing Cymru Group in partnership with CIH Cymru and NIACE Cymru. 

Employment and Skills Week - Leading the Learning

The impact of welfare reform to date and impending Universal Credit means the impetus for landlords to move workless households closer to the job market has never been greater.  Yes, we need the unemployed to take up work-related activities to prevent benefit sanctions (figures from the DWP show the highest number of sanctions against claimants since jobseeker's allowance was introduced in 1996).  But the breadth of the work the sector is currently undertaking is nothing new. In fact, a recent straw poll I undertook with our members on Yammer found that all of the housing associations who responded were core funding their employment programmes and had been doing so for many years.

Employment activities provided by the sector do not extend to just providing work placements but cover the whole spectrum of work-related activity, including tackling basic literacy issues and encouraging tenant involvement, to funding qualifications, providing work placements and providing practical support to tenants who might otherwise have slipped through the net.

It’s therefore really important that the sector links in with adult learning organisations, both at a local and strategic level, to make sure we are able to feed into and influence developments. 

In partnership with CIH Cymru and NIACE Cymru, 22^nd – 28^th September will be “Leading the Learning” week.  During this week we will be holding a seminar with NIACE, the national voice for life-long learning, the details of which are yet to be announced.

Further opportunities to raise the profile of what the sector is doing in this area are available via Welsh Government’s Lift programme. The programme aims to provide 5,000 training and employment opportunities for people living in households where no-one is in work.  At the moment, the programme is being delivered in nine of the Welsh Government's Communities First clusters until the end of 2017.  The sector will shortly be asked to make a commitment in terms of what it can deliver.

In the meantime, do get on board with our Leading the Learning Week. It’s an opportunity to showcase what we’re already doing and, equally, if your organisation is seeking to increase activity in this area it’s an opportunity for you to participate in some of our suggested activities, which range from tenant shadowing to holding your own work and skills showcase event. 

For more information on Leading the Learning, the Work and Skills Information Sharing Group (which meets in September) or how to get involved on Yammer, please contact clare-james@chcymru.org.uk.

Clare James
Housing Services Policy Officer