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An innovative collaboration of thirteen North East housing providers has resulted in a partnership aimed at improving the futures of people in social housing. HEATHER BARRON speaks to Steve McKinlay, chair of HENNE’s board, about the difference HENNE partners are making to their customers’ lives
RECOGNISING the importance of preparing people for work, and actually providing jobs, has spurred a group of North East social housing providers to come together to find a solution.
Along with believe housing, twelve other regional housing providers have created HENNE – Housing Employment Network North East – a partnership aimed specifically at improving employability support and job opportunities for social housing tenants and residents across the region.
The partnership comprises: believe housing, Tyne Housing, Gentoo Group, North Star Housing, Your Homes Newcastle, Johnnie Johnson Housing, Karbon Homes, Home Group, Livin, Bernicia, Beyond Housing, Oasis Community Housing, and Thirteen Group, which, between them, provide more than 180,000 homes across the North East.
Chief executive of Tyne Housing, Steve McKinlay, is chair of the HENNE board, and explains how the project got started.
“In one of our regular meetings, the chief executives of all the providers started talking about potential opportunities where we could demonstrate a more collective endeavour between us. One area that we are all passionate about is around employability.
“We all work in the North East, a region where unemployment has been a longstanding issue, and social housing, proportionately, accommodates more people who are unemployed, than any of the other housing sectors.”
A recent report by Communities that Work highlights the key role social housing plays in supporting skills, talent, and workforce development. It identified that social housing tenants are nearly twice as likely to be out of work as those living in other tenures, and that improving support for social housing residents and local communities can play a key role in boosting growth, raising living standards and reducing inequalities.
Steve continues: “Quite often, government will have a big push on getting people who are out of work into work, and will go through a very complicated process and appoint very large – quite often national – organisations, to run employability workshops. Contracts are awarded to organisations who then come to us wanting to approach our tenants and residents.
“We realised that, as a collective, we were perfectly placed to deliver these services to our tenants and residents ourselves. We work with them regularly within a trusted relationship; we know them; we know their circumstances; we understand the issues they are dealing with.
“We can deliver some of these services much more tangibly, on a much more trusted basis, to the people who live in our homes and live in our communities. And, by virtue of that, we’re more likely to be successful in getting people skilled up, so they’re accessing skills and training, or indeed, accessing the employment market directly.”
“Fundamentally, the thing about housing providers is that we’re in for the long-term with our tenants and residents, so when the employment contract runs out, we’re not going to walk away – we’ll still be there for them.”
Following a positive feasibility study, HENNE was created, employing a full-time business development manager, Ellie Patience, who is responsible for building business development capacity for the partnership, developing strategic relationships, and driving the wider implementation of HENNE programmes of work.
The partners’ work in supporting residents to improve their skills and access to the jobs market is helping thousands of people, which must be good for the whole economy and the country’s workforce.
Over the last six years, HENNE partners have helped 7,930 tenants, residents, and customers (non-tenants or residents) into jobs, and 13,600 were supported towards work.
And, in the last two years, HENNE partners have employed 156 apprentices – 84 in 2022/23, which was an increase of 14 per cent on 2021/22.
Not only are HENNE partners providing training and employability provision, some of the partners have developed an initiative called New Start, aimed at its tenants and residents, which, says Steve, is almost like an adult apprenticeship that guarantees work experience for a fixed amount of time.
The initiative creates paid, career-starter work placements with the housing providers, or other employers, exclusively for people living in social housing. Positions come with training and wraparound support, which can help them secure future employment.
As part of believe housing’s commitment to the initiative, it recruited three of its own tenants into the Community Investment Team, which awards grant funding to not-for-profit projects improving the lives and wellbeing of people in County Durham.
Throughout the placement, they will be supported by an employability coordinator, and they can gain a Level 2 Information, Advice and Guidance qualification. At the end of the six-month contract, they are guaranteed an interview for this job or another within believe housing.
Alan Smith, chief executive at believe housing, says: “We’re proud to be part of HENNE. All the partners are committed to improving employment outcomes for people living in social and supported housing across the region.
“Together we can have a lasting positive impact on lives and communities. It’s very much in line with believe housing’s vision: ‘we believe in life without barriers’.”
“All the partners are committed to improving employment outcomes for people living in social and supported housing across the region.”
Steve says: “The employment market is quite challenging at the minute, so it’s really good to get people in where they can try out a career in housing and we can try them out. It provides a good ‘in’ to good, sustainable, well-paid work.
“As a housing sector, we’re quite a big employer in our own right – across the partnership we employ more than 7,000 people – and there are a lot of ‘quick-wins’ in being able to match up people with the ‘gaps’ that we have as a sector, and, because we have these really good relationships in the community with other employers, we’ve been able to broaden that out beyond housing.”
“While the vacancies are processed in the usual way, through Job Centres for example, we have the advantage through some of the other work that we do of preparing people well for interviews, so that they do their best.
“Some people have been away from the jobs market for some time, and it can be quite daunting to attend an interview. We try to remove all those barriers the best we can and build peoples’ confidence to do the best by themselves that they possible can.”
As European funding for employability programmes comes to an end, it is hoped that future funding to deliver the some of the services will come from a new government funding called the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF), much of which will be devolved through combined authorities and local authorities.
Steve says: “Lots of deprived areas, not least the North East, were quite dependent on European funding to enable delivery of employability programmes.
We are very focused on securing funding from the UKSPF programme, for the Tees Valley at the moment, and for the rest of the North-East in due course.
“However, unemployment and the North East have been synonymous for far too long, regardless of funds that are made available. We have seen mass unemployment for many years, so we want to position ourselves well, to be able to respond to any opportunities that come up.
“We want to offer something different that is bolder and better.”
Three believe housing customers get the new start they needed
A debut novelist, a chef with arthritis, and a single mother have all been able to kick-start their admin careers with housing provider believe housing
Jasmine Wigham, Nadine Stubbs, and Kimberley Brain all had different reasons for wanting a job in administration, but did not know how to get one without prior experience or qualifications.
That was until believe housing created career-start administrative assistant positions in its grant-giving Community Investment Team, exclusively for customers.
English and history graduate Jasmine recently submitted her debut novel, a paranormal fantasy called Cradle of Secrets, to publishers in the UK and US, for consideration, and wanted a new job that would allow her to continue writing.
The 26-year-old, from Peterlee, said: “I graduated in 2019 and got a job in retail after uni, but it was meant to be temporary.
“I’ve tried to apply to admin roles in the past, a lot of the time you need experience or a qualification, but you can’t get experience until someone gives you a chance.
“When this came up it just fit really well. It’s part-time, which works perfectly around my writing.
“My first book has been sent to publishers so, hopefully, I’ll be selling it, but it’s not a big earner.
“So, this is great to have some money coming in every month and a chance to learn new skills.”
Qualified chef Nadine, 50, from Bowburn, loved working in hotel, restaurant, and school kitchens for more than 30 years but with arthritis in her hands and feet, she found the work increasingly difficult.
“I’d thought about retraining but couldn’t afford to do training without earning.
“This is a fantastic opportunity, giving me new skills to build on in future while being paid,” she said.
And 32-year-old Kimberley, from Coxhoe, said: “I’ve a three-year-old son and hadn’t really worked for a while. Once I had enough free childcare to get a job, I wanted something in admin, and working partly from home really helps. I’m really enjoying it.”
The roles were created as part of the New Start scheme, which offers paid placements, with training, to people living in social housing who are looking for their first job or to change career path.
Developed by HENNE partners, the innovative New Start programme has been hugely successful. It is about more than just numbers into employment, it delivers a wide range of positive outcomes for tenants and residents.
Damian Pearson, Community Investment performance team leader at believe housing, said: “We had vacancies in my section and wanted to do things differently, to help the organisation and to help our tenants.
“We worked closely with our Employability Team and encouraged tenants to apply.
“It was a lot quicker process than going out to advert, interviewing and waiting for people to be available to come into post.
“So, it was a bit of a win-win situation for the organisation as it was also really good because it supported our tenants.”
Rachel Edmunds, corporate social responsibility manager at believe housing, added: “These New Start roles have enabled us to support three customers, who for different reasons needed this opportunity.
“This is us living our values and vision of ‘life without barriers’.
“They will gain real, paid, work experience, with holistic wraparound support, and they’re doing rewarding and important work.”
Find out more at the website: www.believehousing.co.uk
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