Starts at Home Day 2021

Posted on: 03 Sep 21

Today, 3 September, is Starts at Home Day.

Starts at Home Day is an opportunity for housing associations up and down the country to celebrate supported housing and the positive impact it makes on thousands of lives. This day of action is central to the overall Starts at Home campaign, which has a simple but important aim – to ensure that people who need extra support will always have a safe home that meets their needs.

With the campaign now in its fifth year, Trident Group continues to join the National Housing Foundation and its members, in continuing to celebrate and protect these housing schemes to ensure that every person in Birmingham and right across the Midlands who needs extra support has a home to turn to.

The aim of the Starts at Home campaign, to ensure that people that need extra support have a safe home that meets their needs, initially sounds relatively straightforward. Yet in these recent times when people have spent more time than ever before in the confines of four walls, often alone, being able to feel safe with that sense of contentment that being settled in a ‘home’ brings has tended to evade so many of us at times.

At Trident Group ensuring that our supported housing offer is one that is safe, supportive and person centred requires a ‘whole organisation’ approach that aligns with our overall strategic aims, objectives and aspirations whilst operationally enables us to react in a fast-changing environment. Proactively responding to the ‘Everybody In’ directive and supporting people experiencing homelessness into our accommodation, rapidly carrying out void work in domestic abuse refuges to welcome people into a place of safety and reassuring our young people as anxiety levels heightened and social networks disappeared became more than just the norm, it became critical as we saw other services become more distant and diluted. Our Beacon of Hope was ever present as our Housing, Care and Support teams accelerated into action across all departments with a sense of urgent comradery to unite in our response.

Colleagues in Business Development team, that had supported in the procurement process for our commission supported housing, saw the most vulnerable members of our society settle in safe accommodation with high quality support rather than be at the mercy of the largely unregulated exempt accommodation sector and the importance of all the due diligence involved in the commissioning was appreciated. The Human Resources teams adapted process for recruitment in vacant posts whilst never compromising our commitment to safer recruitment and on-boarding, welcoming motivated staff keen to come ‘on board’ and work in the supported housing sector. Occupancy agreements were produced with vigour in our Homes and Communities department to be passed to Intensive Housing Management Officers who would rise to the challenge in breaking down any actual barriers to accessing supported housing, accommodating couples together from the rough sleeping community, petting dogs as they explored their new home and offering warm introduction to new faces of committed teams of support workers.

Starts at Home day recognises and celebrate the amazing outcomes achieved and differences made by supporting housing providers. This year supported housing has never felt so authentic- true to its purpose and values and with a spirit of opportunity that has changed lives as our lives have changed.

Joanne Spence
Interim Head of Housing and Support