Together - Resident engagement and involvement strategy 2023 - 2026

Overview

Origin has a strong legacy dating back to 1924 when we were founded by Father Basil Jellicoe in Somers Town as St Pancras Home Improvement Society to improve slum living conditions and support people and communities to achieve a better life. His ethos of ‘homes are not enough’ continues to drive our commitment to our communities, residents and improving services.

This refreshed Together Strategy builds upon the work of the previous strategy to reinforce our commitment to ensure the resident voice is heard, shapes service delivery and influences our priorities. This strategy will help us:

Create a strong culture across Origin that respects, listens and acts on the views of residents
Build stronger partnerships of trust with our residents
Be accountable to residents and strengthen how resident perspectives influence decision making
Support residents to be engaged and connected in their communities

The Together Strategy supports delivery of our Corporate Plan and places our residents at the heart of the business. Our approach will be tailored so that there are opportunities for those residents who want to proactively engage with our policies and shape services, as well those who simply want to know that we have considered implications for residents when we implement change and are keeping them informed. We will also ensure that we embrace the lived experiences of our residents and listen and engage with a diverse range of voices.

Resident Priorities

Through our rolling survey programme and engagement activity, residents have told us they want us to:

Respect and listen better to residents' concerns about where they live and act
Be more proactive and empathetic in our communication, giving updates on the things that matter to them locally
Seek out resident’s views when making changes to policies, services or undertaking improvement work which impact where they live
Make it easy to get what they need when they contact us with a query
Be visible and connected to their communities

We separately asked residents for their views on how they would like to get involved and engage with us. The key themes were:

A strong preference for more involvement in local issues relating to residents’ homes, the neighbourhood and communal spaces.
More opportunities to get involved in formal ways such as Resident Panels, Scrutiny reviews and service improvement projects.
Lighter touch involvement such as online surveys, focus groups and feedback from home.
Residents also said they wanted the opportunity to give feedback and improve services for all residents as well as make a difference in improving their neighbourhood and community.

We also asked residents about their priorities for community investment activities. Health and wellbeing advice to help residents with loneliness emerged as a clear priority followed by support to help residents take the lead on community involvement projects.

These priorities will be addressed not only through this refreshed Together Strategy but also through our Customer Experience Strategy and Corporate Plan actions.

Strategy themes

Theme 1: A culture of respect and listening to resident views

We want a culture where engagement and seeking out resident views is not seen as a ‘specialist’ activity but one that is a requirement of all staff.

Asking residents how they feel about what we do, and for their ideas to help us to do things differently and better. Acknowledging, responding to, and acting on this feedback achieves positive change.

We will:

Provide a range of ways for residents to give their views or get involved. This means that residents can always have their say regardless of their time constraints or needs.
Continue with our programme of satisfaction surveys, Neighbourhood Walkabouts and Explorer days, focus groups, consultations, community events and panel discussions to make sure we understand the lived experiences of our residents and hear from a diverse range of voices.
Embed resident engagement and listening across key activities in our customer focused delivery teams

Theme 2: A culture of respect and listening to resident views

We want to get more residents involved in influencing, improving, and designing services in partnership with us.

Lived experiences are as valuable as professional expertise in designing and shaping how we deliver services. We’ll involve those who use a service, to get their insights and capture voices that often go unheard. We will have a stronger focus on local engagement to solve local issues with effective ways of escalating things if a more strategic approach is needed.

We will:

Use Neighbourhood Action Plans to address local issues with residents central to co creating solutions.
Support the Resident Scrutiny Panel to undertake 2 reviews each year
Encourage residents and Board members to get involved in our Neighbourhood Walkabouts
Expand membership and develop strong relationships with our ‘Together Panel’ so that we hear from a diverse range of voices on policy and service consultations
Involve residents in choosing new contractors and shaping services
Involve residents when we undertake planned improvement works to where they live

Theme 3: Accountability and influence

We want residents to know how we are performing against the service commitments we make to all residents as well as against any local offers.

We will ensure resident perspectives are heard at Board and Committee level so that the resident voice influences and shapes strategic decisions.

We will:

Give the Board a range of ways to listen to the resident voice and hear from the lived experiences of residents
Strengthen how we support Spotlight Residents Panel and their link to the Board so that they are effective in their role
Ensure all customer facing policy reviews consider the views of residents and implications for residents of any changes
Embed consideration of the resident voice across more decision-making reports at Committee and Board
Ensure residents are informed of and can take part in national conversations about social housing and issues that affect them
Publish performance information on our website and communicate through ‘You said, we did’ approaches.

Theme 4: Connected Communities

We want residents to feel connected to their neighbours and communities to help prevent feelings of loneliness and isolation and to help create safer and more cohesive communities.

Residents who want to get more involved will be supported and empowered to make a difference.

We will:

Provide training and support to involved residents to that they have skills and confidence to be effective in their roles
Raise awareness of resident engagement activities
Support residents to become Block Champions and advocate for their neighbourhood though Neighbourhood Walkabouts
Develop activities (in partnership with others) to build safer more cohesive communities and address social isolation
Work with residents to improve neighbourhoods and strengthen communities
Use the ‘Community Fund’ to support community development activities
Make best use of our community spaces to make sure that individuals and community organisations have a place to come together and connect

What will success look like

By delivering on our commitments in the Together Strategy we want residents to:

Residents who want to get more involved will be supported and empowered to make a difference.
Feel there are genuine opportunities for them to get involved
Feel we listen more
Feel they can influence decisions more
Trust us more If we get this right, we believe it will lead to residents being more satisfied with our services and with us as their landlord.