Empowering Communities Annual Report 2021-22

introduction

CHAIR'S REMARKS

I’m delighted to present the fourth annual report for our social enterprise, Empowering Communities

Empowering Communities is the trading subsidiary of Supporting Communities, an independent charitable organisation that has worked for more than 40 years to equip tenants and communities in Northern Ireland with the means to have a voice in their housing and other local services

Established in 2017, Empowering Communities works with housing providers, large and small, who want to enhance their tenant engagement and implement effective tenant participation practices

During the past few years, Empowering Communities has made significant strides towards establishing itself as the ‘ go to’ tenant participation expert for housing associations across Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland

We have a proven track record of effective tenant/community engagement, delivered by an experienced, highly skilled and dedicated staff team

After the uncertainty of the pandemic years, it is great to see that our membership is growing We now have 20 organisational members

We continue to show signs of recovery in terms of both existing work orders and new opportunities to tender for larger contracts which bodes well for our future

Our directors and staff intend to be out and about as much as possible attending conferences and networking, advocating on behalf of the company, building relationships with new potential customers and consolidating our work with existing ones

I hope you enjoy a flavour of what has been happening this past year!

Paul Armstrong, Chair, Empowering Communities Board

quick glance

Our membership has grown this year from 17 to 20 housing providers 16 out of the 20 housing associations in Northern Ireland are now members, and we now count four of those from the Republic of Ireland in our ranks as well

We delivered training to a total of 238 participants (105 staff, 121 tenants and 12 board members of housing associations) across the island of Ireland and earned a 99% satisfaction rate. Twenty five of these participants achieved an OCNNI qualification with us.

This year we rolled out an important new service to housing providers in Northern Ireland: Tenant Participation Accreditation. The award recognises landlords that demonstrate excellence in tenant participation and provides an in depth assessment of engagement practices and activities

Radius Housing was the first to go through the accreditation process in 2021 earning a silver level award in August Several other housing associations in NI and RoI are commencing the process in 2022/23, and we are pleased to see that even more have included this as an explicit business objective within their Strategic Plans for coming years

our member's network

TPPN

The Tenant Participation Practitioners' Network provides an opportunity for staff involved in tenant engagement work to come together to share good practice

The group meets quarterly, and the membership’s needs drive their agenda The group ’ s membership has grown since last year, with TP staff from AHBs in RoI becoming involved Online meetings have enabled increased attendance from across the island

memberfromFoldHousingIreland

We continue to provide online networking and resource sharing opportunities for member staff to help one another alongside regular meetings.

BLOG SERIES

Our blog series continued the theme of taking tenant participation in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to the next level

We featured articles from our in house experts, noted guest bloggers such as John Hannigan and residents from Circle VHA, and a blog from The Housing Agency’s Alex Dowdall

We are grateful to everyone who shared their thoughts, experiences and words of wisdom with us as we advanced the cause of tenant participation

Read all of this year ' s #NextLevelTP blogs on our new website

“Itisinvaluabletoour residentsacrossall associationstohavea strongsupportnetworkof professionalssharing informationandbest practice.”

new products

TP ACCREDIATION

Radius has become the first housing association in Northern Ireland to achieve the Tenant Participation Standards Accreditation from Supporting Communities

The TP Standards are ten criteria for tenant involvement that an organisation must meet to become accredited Accreditation is awarded at three levels based on the Scottish model and adapted for Northern Ireland by Supporting Communities

We led a robust assessment of Radius’ tenant participation work to date,

working with others

highlighting good practice and making suggestions for improvement in areas

An independent panel then individually rated the standards against a set of competencies before collectively discussing their findings and awarding an overall rating of Sliver Level 2 A remarkable achievement straight out of the gate!

NEW PARTNERSHIPS

We're thrilled to be expanding our reach into the Republic of Ireland In addition to Circle VHA, Tuath, Fold Ireland and Cluid have joined our membership

We have also continued our relationship with The Housing Agency, an Irish government body overseeing the delivery of housing and housing services in the RoI

The Housing Agency approached Empowering Communities in 2021 to work in partnership to raise awareness of tenant engagement with social landlords via the delivery of three

online workshops which were attended by 131 participants

We plan to repeat this success in 2022/23 with a further series of workshops that will be delivered to both AHB and Local Authority (Council) housing staff

AlphaHousing(NI)Ltd

ApexHousingAssociation

ArbourHousingAssociation

ArkHousingAssociation

ChoiceHousing

CircleVHA

ClanmilHousingAssociation CluidHousing ConnswaterHomes CraigowenHousingAssociation ExternHomes

FoldIrelandHousing

GroveHousingAssociation

HabintegHousingAssociation NBHousing

NewingtonHousingAssociation

RadiusHousingAssociation

RuralHousingAssociation

StMatthewsHousing Association

TuathHousingAssociation