With such a lot going on in our communities, it’s important to take a step back now and again and look at the positive impact our work is having on the people living in these communities.
So how do we do that?
We call it social value
We look at the activities, progress and changes we can see in the community, and we listen to our customers’ stories and feedback. It’s a way for us to keep an eye on what’s happening and to measure the positive impact our projects have on people.
Success comes in all shapes and sizes. It might be building someone’s confidence or improving their job prospects by giving them some kind of training. Or reducing a customer’s anxiety through money coaching and debt support, a service that’s provided by our money coaching team.
By checking in on the changes for our customers and community and being able to report on the positive impact these activities have had, we can:
- Decide where to invest our time and money
- Improve how we communicate with you
- Offer more services
- Show our partners the impact we’re having
- Get more funding contracts
- Do more of what we do, but even better
We work closely with the Housing Associations’ Charitable Trust (HACT), and use their tools to monitor, model and measure our social value.
Sonya’s story
Some of our customers asked if we could give them some face-to-face support with their digital skills.
One customer, Sonya, had asked us to help her as her husband had passed away and he was always the one that managed their technology. He would use WhatsApp on their smartphone and tablet to chat with their daughter and family in Wales.
Since he’d passed away, Sonya had been too nervous to use their tech without him which meant she struggled to stay in touch with her family in Wales. This resulted in her feeling really isolated.
After spending some time with our Digital Champions, Sonya was able to use WhatsApp to video call her daughter. She popped back into the digital drop-in session half an hour later to tell everyone she’d just video called her daughter for the first time ever. What a result!
Eric's story
When our community independence team first met our customer Eric he was feeling isolated and lonely. He was living alone and as an 80-year old, had sadly seen most of his friends pass away over recent years.
With some gentle encouragement, he started coming along to one of our community spaces. Every week he joins in the fun, playing dominoes and bingo, and also comes to our special occasion events like our Valentine’s Day supper and our Pancake Day lunch.
He also signed up for our ‘Winter Warmers’ cookery course, a six-week project that was jointly funded by Yorkshire Housing’s community fund and Carers Plus Yorkshire.
Participants were given cooking demonstrations, and provided with slow cookers and ingredients to take away so they could try the recipes at home themselves. Eric enjoyed it so much, he signed up to do it all again when the next course starts. In no time at all he’ll be giving Yorkshire’s very own top chef James Martin a run for his money!
We’re chuffed to bits that Eric’s made loads of new friends and is much happier and more confident. It just goes to show, a little bit of cookery, company and conversation can change someone’s life!
What else do we do?
Want to find out what else we do at Yorkshire Housing to support the community and our customers? Check out our other useful info.