| Salvation Army Housing Association
Partnership Excellence |
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Welcome to this fifth edition of SAHA's corporate e-newsletter designed to keep our partners and stakeholders informed of our performance and the services we provide to people in need of support.
If you would like any more information on our business activities, the work we undertake in your area, or developing a partnership with SAHA please visit our website www.saha.org.uk email us on Partnership.Excellence@saha.org.uk or call Alpita Patel or Peter Latham on 0800 970 6363.
Thank you
Nigel Parrington
Chief Executive |
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 Proposal for SAHA To Join The Salvation Army
We are pleased to announce that a draft proposal has been submitted to the Tenant Services Authority to integrate SAHA with The Salvation Army, in a group structure where SAHA would become a subsidiary of The Salvation Army.
The key benefits of this proposal are:
- Extending a range of Salvation Army services, such as "Employment Plus" to all our residents
- New opportunities to grow and support our core business through the provision of housing management, maintenance and inspection services within The Salvation Army group
The proposal became public on Friday 9 April 2010 with an article in Inside Housing.
Following the Tenants Services Authority agreement, we will be commencing consultations with staff, residents and other key stakeholders on their views and will provide more detailed information as part of the consultation process. |
 MP's Put A Face To Homeless People At Parliamentary Reception
On the 14th October 2009 SAHA held a very special celebration event at the Houses of Parliament. We wanted to do two things; to mark the success of 50 years of housing people in housing need and to bring to the attention of Members of Parliament some of the challenges that our residents and the homelessness sector are facing today.
The issues included:
- The barriers created by the Housing Benefit 16 hour rule - which limits the ability for those received Housing Benefit to undertake courses and qualifications reducing the potential to achieve NPI 79 'Achievement of a level 2 qualification by the age of 19
- Supporting People funding and the removal of ring fencing - which potentially puts funding from schemes and projects for the homeless and vulnerable in jeopardy, and thus a challenge in meeting NPI 141 'Vulnerable people achieving independent living'
- The challenges in accessing move-on accommodation - which often leads to prolonged homelessness and again impacting on the ability to achieve NPI 141 and also 142 'number of people supported to achieve independent living'
Both of these were achieved in a magnificent manner, largely thanks to the participation of our residents who talked with invited guests which included members of the House of Commons and House of Lords.
For more information on House of Commons event, please see attached link..... |
Tenant Services Authority's (TSA) National Standards
Overview  and Local Offers
The TSA is the new regulator for all social housing and from 1st April 2010, it introduced six new national standards of service that social housing providers like SAHA will have to meet.
The six standards will be:
- Tenant involvement and empowerment standard: This includes customer service and choice, involvement & empowerment and responding to complaints
- Home standard: This includes quality of accommodation and repairs & maintenance
- Tenancy standard: This includes allocations, rents and tenure
- Neighbourhood and community standard: This includes neighbourhood management, local area co-operation and anti-social behaviour
- Value for money standard
- Governance and financial viability standard
To meet the TSA regulatory standards, Salvation Army Housing Association is working closely with our residents from our Directly Managed Supported, Agency Managed Supported, Sheltered and General Needs Housing to help shape, influence and monitor our services, this is done by various means such as; residents customer panel, surveys, meetings/associations and will be the main topic at our upcoming Customer Conference in June.
In response to the emerging regulatory changes we have revised our Business Plan with substantial influence from resident's feedback. We received this feedback at our annual customer panel conference which took place in London during June 2009; here residents had the opportunity to participate in influencing the direction of the association.
We are keen to receive input from all our stakeholders in the development of our local offers and would therefore like to invite you to make any comments or suggestions. Please contact Peter Latham, Principal Manager of Business Support & Innovation at peter.latham@saha.org.uk. |
Young Adults Rewarded for Their Achievement 
Young adults who completed an innovative personal development
course have been rewarded for their achievement at a celebratory event at Doncaster College.
The learners were presented with certificates by the College's Deputy Principal Angela Kokes at a recent ceremony at The Hub, in Doncaster.
61 learners from two organisations completed the City & Guilds Certificate in Self- Development Through Learning (Learning Power Award) .
Learners who achieved the certificate were part of the Doncaster Foyer and Doncaster Housing for Young People organisations who achieved a fantastic total of 117 units, with 7 learners achieving the full award (all 5 units).
The qualification is specifically designed to help people get back into learning. Consequently many on this programme have benefited from the increased confidence and skills they have gained. For more information on the programme, call Doncaster College on 0800 358 7575 |
SAHA Tackles Anti Social Behaviour
SAHA ensure that a proactive and strategic approach is taken to manage anti-social behaviour, by having in-depth policies and procedures, training our staff on how to deal with anti-social behaviour within our services.
We also work closely with local and partnering agencies to tackle ASB issues including: police, local authorities and social services to ensure that the full range of criminal and civil remedies are used to tackle and prevent incidents in and around our properties, and to ensure that our residents have a safe and secure living environment, whilst work with local authorities to achieve NPIs 21 and 27 - 'Dealing with/Understanding local concerns about ASB and Crime by the local council and police'
For more information on ASB please click on the following link..... |
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