Presentation by Laura Dillon, Housing Manager, and Andrew Smith, Head of Housing Delivery and Communities. (No report to come).
Minutes:
The Head of Housing Delivery and Communities and the Housing Manager presented this agenda item.
It was stated that the service had been expanded and there were eight Housing Officers. The service dealt with mental health issues on a daily basis. Adult Social Care Services were based in The Burys building and the Housing Team had strong relationships with them. It was possible to link with other services where tenants had addiction issues. The Housing Service spent a lot of time building relationships with tenants and made regular visits to build trust.
The team has to be extremely resilient due to the nature of the work. The Housing Team has access to a clinical psychologist for monthly sessions, this is to help support resilience within the team, due to the complex case management. The Homelessness Team also has access to the clinical psychologist. Sometimes there were safeguarding concerns and referrals. The Housing Manager detailed a recent case her team had dealt with by way of an example of the work of her service.
There was a question from the Committee about what information could be given to councillors by the service when they were contacted by constituents. The Housing Manager advised that it was limited but the service could explain what they were doing to resolve a matter, in line with GDPR. One of the Committee suggested that there needed to be a way that the Housing Service could give an indication of where the councillor needed to exercise extra care due to mental health issues.
There was a question from the Committee about whether there was any work done with non-tenants, for example accessing the mediation service. The Housing Manager stated that the Mediation Service was a service open to people in private rented or home owners. The Housing Management Team only worked with Waverley’s tenants.
The Head of Housing Delivery and Communities stated that anyone homeless or threatened with homelessness triggered a health assessment. It was often found that the person had mental health and alcohol problems. The service tried to support the person to engage with the appropriate services.
There was a specialist support team who were able to offer support to people in short term accommodation.
People were given step by step support to become more independent such as how to manage a home and then moved to supported living accommodation and then when they were ready they were moved to a rented property. The Housing options encouraged flexibility on the length of time people could stay in hostels before they had to move on. The Council had a Rough Sleeper Support Officer who worked with difficult cases. The Council received money from the Government to maintain the homelessness service.
Councillors asked what happened when someone was not aware that they had a mental health problem. Housing officers would encourage tenants to engage with their GP, who could assess for mental health and make any necessary referrals. The Housing Manager stated that the team had links with Adult Social Care, who the housing officers can link with, to identify if tenants are known to them, so support can be put in place, the housing manager also stated the service is extremely underfunded. They also asked what training Housing staff had on recognising mental health problems. The Housing Manager said that staff received regular training which in January and February 2021 had included suicide risk training. The Team were also able to access training provided by Surrey County Council.
The Tenants Panel representatives stated that they had not come across mental health issues whilst assisting tenants, but would consider seeking training in light of the discussion.
The Housing Manager stated that the criteria for obtaining mental health support was getting increasingly more difficult and the team were doing a lot of support work previously undertaken by social workers.
RESOLVED
· The Committee recognised and praised the work which the housing team did in very difficult circumstances.
· There would be another presentation by a specialist housing provider arranged by the Head of Housing Delivery and Communities team in the future, this would be scheduled into the work programme