Our recordings cover a variety of topics - ranging from practical housing management sessions and high-level policy discussions to webinars designed to support your professional development. All recordings are free for all CIH members, log in and listen/watch from anywhere.
Getting your repairs service back up and running during COVID-19
As we start easing the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions what will the impact be on repairs and maintenance services? How will organisations deal with the backlog of repairs, reach out to customers in a meaningful way and manage customer expectations.?
Our speakers reviewed the current situation, explored how we work towards returning to normal service, considering how long this might take and explored whether there are opportunities to be taken from this crisis to do things differently in the future.
Bonfires to beacons: community cohesion in Northern Ireland
Celebrations of culture and heritage can be an important part of life for some and a contentious issue for others. Tanya, Gavin & Mark examined the role social housing landlords can play in supporting communities to explore the diverse range of opportunities available to them in reimaging celebrating their cultural heritage differently, and looked at how we can learn from the journey's others have already embraced and how can we support positive expressions of culture.
International best practice examples, local office case studies and findings from consultation with staff and customers were explored alongside a series of practical initiatives designed to support communities' initiate conversations around change.
Building better boards
We were delighted to host our first CIH Building better boards event with over 200 people in attendance throughout the day.we presented our new offer to boards to help drive best practice, knowledge sharing and promote professionalism that drives assurance and innovation across the sector.
Expert panels discussed governance and building better boards in the 4 sessions listed below:
- Building better boards
- Putting people's voices at the heart of governance
- The new business as usual: What does this mean for good governance
- Boards cannot live by governance alone
A summary of the discussions is included in our Building better boards virtual pack
Welfare benefits and coronavirus
Sam Lister, policy and practice officer at CIH provided an update on the main out-of-work and in-work welfare benefits that have been made as a result of the Coronarvirus outbreak
Sam Lister and Sarah Davis, policy and practice officers at CIH discussed help with housing costs through universal credit and housing benefit.
Homelessness during Coronavirus and beyond
Margaret-Ann Brunjes, chief executive, Homeless Network Scotland and Clare Mailer, head of housing service at Perth and Kinross Council explored the challenges of dealing with homelessness during the Coronavirus outbreak and discussed how we ensure that homelessness doesn’t increase when restrictions begin to be eased.
COVID-19 impact: Northern Ireland economy and property market
Jordan Buchanan, chief economist at PropertyPal provided analysis and data around how COVID-19 has impacted the property maket in Northern Ireland.
Areas discussed were:
- NI economic update for the COVID-19 world
- potential property market implications over the coming months and years
- wider market concerns including supply, prices and rents
- opportunities in the current climate.
Communications and Coronavirus: what works?
Effective communication is key when dealing with and managing the many problems presenting themselves during the current Coronavirus crisis. Whether it’s scaling up communications to support customers or providing critical daily internal updates for employees. Steve Hayes, communications manager at Citizen provided guidance on how housing organisations can deliver on their promises to support communities explaining what works when it comes to ensuring messages are clear, considered and current so that the correct people are aware of the right information at the right time.
Areas explored included:
- effective ways to keep in contact with customers and the right questions to ask (for example around health and wellbeing and ensuring people have sufficient food and medical supplies etc)
- scaling up communications with those who have known vulnerabilities, the elderly, and people who may be suffering from loneliness and isolation
- new and innovative methods of communication being used to communicate with customers
- forms of internal engagement activity to provide information to staff that is most valuable to them and addresses not only what they need to know but also how they are feeling in terms of health and wellbeing
- providing visible internal leadership to ensure that all staff feel valued and that conditions and pressures are recognised
- implementing the use of a range of technologies such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, WhatsApp groups etc to keep staff connected
- structured and unstructured connections with work and colleagues
Co-ordinating fun and light-hearted activities to keep staff connected and to help keep up staff morale
Launch of research into affordable housing need in Scotland 2021-2026
Shelter Scotland, Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, and CIH Scotland launched new research into affordable housing need in Scotland. The findings set out the number of affordable homes Scotland needs between 2021 and 2026. At this launch event, we heard about demographic and housing market trends in the Scottish housing system and what this means in terms of access to affordable homes in the short-to medium-term.
In 2015, the organisations’ joint research helped to inform the current affordable housing supply programme, and the study has been repeated with the aim of setting a new robust target that will meet existing and future need.
COVID-19 and front-line housing
The current lockdown situation has evolved work for front-line housing staff and young professionals. CIH Futures board members shared their experiences and presented best practice on the transition to remote working.
Ensuring equality during lockdown
Our speakers, Alicja Zalesinka, Director of Tai Pawb and Hannah Wharf, External Affairs Principal, Equality Human Rights Commission explored how the Coronavirus crisis is impacting the poorer and more vulnerable people in our communities and throwing up barriers to the way that we would normally provide services.
We discussed how to can ensure that we maintain equality in the allocation of housing options and support services provision during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Shine a light on mental health and housing
We were joined by our president Aileen Evans for this session on mental health and housing. Learn more about the mental health toolkit that has been created especially for the housing sector. We also heard from experts in the field of mental health and from leading housing organisations on how they have applied best practice for both staff and residents alike.
The future of sheltered housing
The expert panel looked at the housing needs of our ageing population and whether the current sheltered housing stock is suitable for purpose.
Areas discussed were:
- The housing needs of our ageing population
- Is the current sheltered housing stock suitable for purpose?
- How have sheltered housing services been evolving in recent years?
- Supporting sheltered tenants through the Coronavirus pandemic
- Funding and partnership opportunities to enhance the sheltered housing offer
- Ensuring effective tenant participation in sheltered housing
- Can we sustain sheltered housing with the squeeze on Supporting People funding?
- The need for co-operation with the health and social care sector in developing future models of sheltered accommodation
- Examples of good practice.
ASB think tank
We heard from experts on the subject of ASB covering a legal update, best practice and different approaches to dealing with ASB and how to tackle ASB in the lockdown environment.
Partnership working with housing, health and social care
This webinar looked at partnership projects and how these have been adapted to be able to deliver in the new world of lockdown. Care and Repair Cymru shared their ‘hospital to a healthier home’ project and Warmer Wales discussed how they are supporting people in their homes using remote technology.
Building and maintaining effective partnerships between housing, health and social care is a key way to ensure people are able to stay safely in their homes and can return home as soon as possible after any hospital stays.
EU settlement scheme, what you need to know
CIH Cymru, in partnership with Newfields Law hosted this webinar, which included a presentation, offering an overview to the EU settlement scheme, along with eligibility and suitability requirements, and the application process. The webinar was aimed at all frontline staff who may come into contact with individuals who are required to apply under the scheme and require guidance and assistance to complete their applications.
The webinar also provided attendees with a level of insight into future immigration routes following the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.