H3007 Involving Housing Service Users
Part A
Involving Housing Service Users
Assessment task:
You have just been employed as a tenant and service user involvement officer for a housing organisation. The organisation has seen the number of service users becoming involved in consultation and decision-making decline significantly in recent years. Your main task is to maximise service-user involvement. You have been asked to submit to your line manager a plan setting out how you will do this.
Your plan should be divided into 5 parts, as follows:
- An introduction to ‘service user involvement’, specifically the legal and regulatory requirements in your country, and an explanation of its potential benefits. (AC 1.1, 1.2)
- An outline of the different methods used by housing organisations to involve service users in different settings (eg general needs housing / hostels). (AC 2.1)
- An explanation of when these different methods are appropriate, depending on the desired outcome (eg to provide information, to consult, or to facilitate decision-making by service users). (2.2)
- An evaluation of the impact of service user involvement on your organisation currently. Can you identify occasions when service user involvement has had a positive impact? (AC 2.2, 3.1)
- Finally, a plan setting out how you will maximise service user involvement:
- How could you increase the number and range of people participating?
- Which methods of participation will you continue to use, which will you phase out, and why?
- Are there any new methods you’d like to introduce? If so, why? (AC 3.2)
Total word count: 1,500 words
Task B
Sustainable Communities
Assessment task:
At the housing provider where you work, there is concern about the multiple challenges facing several of its estates, and the organisation wants to find out more about supporting the sustainability of communities.
As part of this, your manager has asked you to examine community sustainability on a particular estate you are familiar with (it may be one you work on). Write a report for your manager which includes all of the following:
The first section sets the scene by looking at some key terminology and concepts:
- Provide at least three definitions of the word ‘community’, comparing and contrasting the definitions particularly bearing in mind their relevance for housing providers (AC 1.1)
- Using the Egan Wheel as a basis, explain the concept of a sustainable community and the key components which contribute to it (AC 1.3)
- Outline key features of the government’s approach to shaping sustainable communities in your country of the UK (AC 2.1)
500 words
The second section examines the estate you are focusing on:
- Briefly describe at least three of the key components (as identified by Egan) of your chosen estate, particularly in terms of how they affect the community’s sustainability (AC 1.2)
- Give an overview of the key social and economic factors affecting your chosen estate (AC 2.2)
500 words
The final section looks at ways in which your organisation could support your chosen estate to become more sustainable:
- Using good practice example(s), choose one of the initiatives from the list below and explain, giving reasons, how far you think this type of initiative could bring, or has brought, improvements to the sustainability of your chosen estate.
- Employment initiatives
- Healthy living projects
- Digital inclusion projects
- Community development
- Participatory budgeting
- Explain the role of the partner(s) your organisation would work with to deliver your chosen initiative, and why a partnership approach would be effective.
- Briefly indicate which other two of the initiatives listed in qu6 above you think would make a significant difference to the sustainability of your chosen estate, and give your reasons why. (AC 3.1, 3.2) 500 words
Total word count 1,500 words