At a Glance
West Kent Housing Association made an approach to the National Housing Federation asking if they could recommend an organisation to deliver specific and bespoke equality assessment training for their housing development and asset teams. Positive About Inclusion were delighted to be recommended and subsequently chosen to design and deliver this training.
About the Client
Founded in 1989, West Kent is a vibrant, community-based organisation providing much needed affordable homes and services to people living in the towns and villages throughout Kent. They believe that a good home is a foundation for getting on in life; their core purpose is to help the many people for whom a good home (to rent or buy) is too expensive, and to nurture their communities. West Kent are passionate about the role a housing association can play in society and believe the values of an organisation are what makes it special. They have ambitions to increase homes in management to 10,000 by 2025 and to re-shape their property portfolio to better meet the current and future local needs across Kent and Medway.
Challenges and Objectives
West Kent are committed to embedding equality, diversity and inclusion considerations throughout the business and they already had in place a template utilised by operational colleagues for making equality assessments. However the housing development and asset teams required some training and guidance that was specific to the distinct roles they carry out and the different types of considerations across the nine protected characteristics coming from their perspectives.
The teams wanted to gain confidence in the completion of equality assessments and needed an organisation with detailed knowledge of the social housing development and asset worlds to support them with this.
Solution
Drawing upon our significant social housing sector experience we designed a bespoke equality assessment 90 minute, virtually delivered, training course for West Kent’s housing development and asset teams. We designed the course to be made up of two parts:
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the theory – covering what equality assessments are and how they bring value to a housing association
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the practical – using examples and case studies ranging across the 9 protected characteristics to bring equality considerations in relation to each to life
Impact
At the start of the session a temperature check on the confidence of participants showed that most people hadn’t had much experience of equality assessments and as such felt slightly nervous about their completion. We created a relaxed and engaging atmosphere during the training and encouraged conversation and participation to share experiences. This worked really well and participants came away from the training feeling much more confident!
“Thank you for the session. It was very insightful and reassuring we are on a good pathway. I am happy to recommend you for future HA work.”
Adam Jenner, Delivery Manager (Development), West Kent
