I have been asked to begin work on setting up a tenants forum within a new extra care housing complex in my area, as the adults do not have a route to air their views and for them to be fed back to management. This will also give residents a chance to have more of a decision making role in some aspects.
I am unsure where to start with this and would really appreciate some help, thoughts or comments.
My inital ideas were to begin building relations with the "activities co-ordinator" and manager(s) and see if it would be possible to go ahead with this. Then begin with contact with residents to get to know them and the needs that they feel they have and if the idea will take off with the residents and willingness of the project..... does this sound okay?
Many Thanks, Kenny
Speak to managers etc, sure, but be careful not to let them set any agendas for this. Let the tenants steer it. Set up a consultation process and get the tenants on board quickly so that they can decide what the issues and agenda is. Do a huge mailshot through doors, meet the tenants, put up notices etc and organise an open public meeting to get things started. Help it be an inclusive space - ensure disabled access, and let people know that all voices will be heard. Think about ways of helping people have a voice if they do not want to / are unable to attend meetings or find them difficult - advocates or representatives, written or tape recorded opinions to feed it etc. Maybe formal meetings are not appropriate for your setting...other ideas could be informal drop ins, or a tenants discussion newsletter. You could consider a website or web based forum as well if people have computer access - I'm just chucking ideas around.
But yeah, your basic idea of face to face contact with the residents is a good starting point.
Hello there, I have experience of setting up tenants forums in a previous role. My intial starting point would be to arrange an intial meeting or meetings at times when you know people will be around (late afternoon and evening maybe). Design a flyer with the details and display for all to see (using plain english in an inviting tone and offering free refershments if you can) aswell as informing other staff who maybe able to inform people about the meeting via word of mouth.
At the intial meeting speak to people about what you hope to achieve, then offer people the opportunity to shape the process you use. They can decide when meetings should happen, how often, what time, how it will be adverstised etc. Once the forum is established one or more of the peop[le involved may want to take on supporting roles in helping you to run the forum.
You will usually find it may take some time to get people on board. People may intially be thinking what's in this for me and is it worth me getting involved (the selling point is that people can influence and make decisions on issues that effect them). I am making assumuptions that this is the case. It may be worth checking out with your managers what sort of things people will be able to influence/ change, as you will need to be honest from the outset.
Best of luck this is an exciting challenge :)
I have assumed you have been asked to set up a forum so based my reply on this. You may need to do other things aswell to get people on board who don't want to attend meetings as the other reply said.
I have used newsletters, notice boards and suggestion boxes and they are all ok as alternatives but I would rather speak to people face to face. I have also done a roadshow where I have been available between certain times in a visual place to answer queries/ questions etc and found this works well too.
The people in your scheme will have plenty of ideas of their own.
Making contact with the residents is the best thing to do right now, but I would not suggest using cold calling to do it. Many will not pick up, or just ask that you remove them from the list (if you have one).
You can use newsletters, and mail them out, or go door to door.
The paths going up to and down from the forest of cedarsAll mourn you: the weeping does not end day or night —Tablet VIII