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 - 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 

The 'bedroom tax': no compassion, no choice

Lord Freud’s controversial comments on the bedroom tax this week should come as no surprise to anybody. For three years we’ve been part of the fight against this policy, highlighting the lack of equality, the lack of compassion, and the false economy of it. His two suggested solutions to the ‘bedroom tax’ were quite simply letting children sleep on a sofa bed when they stay, or finding a job. Not only do these solutions demonstrate that same disregard for compassion and equality that we have become used to, but they ignore an overwhelming body of evidence that say they will not work.

The first ‘solution’ makes the assumption that a tenant – a single mother or father – has managed to downsize from the house the policy judges them to be under-occupying. Evidence has shown that they are unable to do this. Figures unearthed by BBC Wales revealed that just 400 social rented single bed homes were available across Wales for people to downsize into. Lord Freud’s own department estimates 40,000 under-occupiers. 

There is, of course, the option of downsizing into the private rented sector. CHC members’ own evidence to the Welsh Affairs committee, supported by a Channel 4 investigation, has shown consistently that this is a more expensive option. You have to wonder how much consideration Lord Freud has given to this false economy when he talks about ‘very expensive things’ for the state to do.

And so, to the argument that those people under-occupying their homes should look for work. 20% of housing benefit claimants already work. Then there are those who can’t. People with disabilities have often been lost in the debates about the ‘bedroom tax’. We’re left with those who can work who, in Wales, find themselves amongst 119,000 unemployed people, with less than 20,000 vacancies up for grabs. Assuming that all applicants are equal, and of course they’re not, that’s a 1 in 6 chance of a job. Statistics show that in some of our most deprived communities such as Blaenau Gwent, that is more like 1 in 23. This is before we consider the circumstances of the applicants, who may well be unable to find any suitable jobs in their area.

Lord Freud made it very clear in his evidence that he believes tenants have a choice when it comes to the ‘bedroom tax’. However, six weeks into the life of the policy, the only choice many face is whether to pay their rent or feed their family.


Aaron Hill
Policy Assistant