According to YouGov research in 2023, 1 in 4 people (26.9%) say that ASB has made them feel unsafe in their local area. An estimated 1.7 million people experience ASB at least once per day, every day (3.3% of UK adults).

We understand the impact anti-social behaviour (ASB) can have on you and your family, and we play an active role in addressing this. In addition to working with partner agencies such as the police and local councils, we are also a member of the Western Suffolk Community Safety Partnership, which works strategically to tackle criminal and ASB across the region.

So far, for 2024 -2025, 84% of ASB complainants have been satisfied with the handling of their ASB case.

We caught up with Scarlett, one of our neighbourhood housing officers, to learn more about how she helps residents with their ASB issues.

“When residents report anti-social behaviour to us, I want them to feel heard and know I will try to help them. I always ensure our residents clearly understand our next steps and how they can support us in managing their cases. It’s never as simple as a quick fix, but I want them to know that their communication with us is important, and it will be investigated.

I always try to manage their expectations as best I can early on. When a resident is reporting ASB, I want to know how it affects them and how it impacts day-to-day living in and around their home. This gives me an understanding of how they are affected and how we can help find a solution. Sometimes, we can’t always do anything, but we will always provide advice or signpost to support the resident.
By ensuring that I update the resident regularly, I can make sure that they don’t feel let down or are unsure of what is going on, which is very important when dealing with ASB cases.

Of course, when dealing with an ASB case, it can be challenging to resolve all of the issues. In a dispute, finding a practical solution that benefits both parties can be hard. In some instances, we have barriers dealing with ASB that are out of our control, but I will always try and do what I can to resolve the issue. Most of the challenges we face can be overcome, but I would say the biggest challenge is the time we manage multiple ASB cases, and sometimes that can restrict us from being as present as we would like to be.

However, a big highlight for me is when we close an ASB case, and the residents tell me things have improved and that they have no further concerns. It’s really rewarding to know that all parties have listened and taken on board advice and support, ensuring no further impact on other residents and the community, meaning people can enjoy their homes and where they live.

If you are experiencing ASB, there are multiple agencies who can help and support you regardless of the housing situation. Always do your research or speak to your local council if you are unsure who can help you. If you can and feel comfortable, try to resolve the matter yourself. I would always recommend this in the first instance to avoid escalation.”

Here are some compliments Scarlett has received:

• “I just wanted to say a massive thanks to Scarlett and the wider team involved in a recent ASB case as the issues are now resolved after a number of years.”
• “I would like to thank Scarlett and Kerry for everything they have done to help and support me. Thank you for your kindness and support.”
• “Top result, Scarlett really is an asset to Havebury.”
• “Thank you Scarlett for all your hard work and compassion. You have really helped me in a difficult time.”

If you are experiencing ASB and the behaviour is criminal, please call 101; if there is a risk to your life, always call 999.

You can report fly-tipping and abandoned vehicles on myHavebury. For anything else, you can call our Neighbourhood and Estates team on 0300 3300 0900 and enter extension number 7333 when prompted, or you can email the team at myarea@havebury.com.

We also have an online form you can complete.

The post Anti-social behaviour (ASB) Awareness Week appeared first on Havebury Housing.

Independent East is made up of five housing associations – us, Broadland Housing Association, Freebridge Community Housing, Orwell Housing and Saffron Housing Trust. The partnership aims to share knowledge, experience and good practice, and create a collective lobbying voice for social housing in the region.

Here’s an introductory video about the five housing associations

We were joined by three external speakers: 

• Jonathan Walters from the Regulator of Social Housing. who provided an update from the Regulator.
• Kate Henderson from the National Housing Federation, who gave us a political and policy update.
• Michael Appleby from Altair, who discussed artificial intelligence (AI) and the implications for housing.

Our CEO, Andrew Smith‍ and Chair of Board, Howard Cresswell‍ were then joined by James Francis, the CEO of Saffron and Tallia Langston, Member of the Board Responsible for Complaints (MRC) at Saffron, to discuss their organisation’s experience of the new regulatory regime.

Here are some videos highlighting some of Independent East’s projects.

Building new homes

 

Wave 2 funding and sustainability projects

 

Customer funds

 

Resident engagement

 

Here are the highlights from the conference.

The post The 2024 Independent East Conference appeared first on Havebury Housing.

On Tuesday 5 November our out-of-hours team will cover our phone lines between 10.00 – 11.00 am. Normal service will resume from 11.00 am

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On Wednesday 13 November our Neighbourhood and Estates team are training and won’t be available to take any incoming calls or emails on this day.

The usual service will resume on Thursday 14 of November 2024.

If your enquiry concerns grounds maintenance, tree issues, fly-tips, or abandoned vehicles, you can log it via myHavebury.

All other services will be running as usual, and you can find a full list of extension numbers here.

Thank you for your co-operation.

The post Upcoming team training dates appeared first on Havebury Housing.

Pumpkins are appearing on doorsteps, the nights are getting darker, we are fully on our way to spooky season and to celebrate we want you to share with us your little monsters dressed up for Halloween.

So if you are having a Halloween party, you are taking part in some spooky events or you’re out trick or treating, we want to see your pictures.

We are inviting all ages to get involved, but you must be a resident of ours to enter.

You can upload your pictures below, email them to engagement@havebury.com or add them to our social media post on Facebook.

The competition will be open from 10am 28 October and will close at 10am 4 November so you have plenty of time to get involved.

Photos will then be sent to our judging panel for the winner’s to be decided.

The photos will be judged on

• Spookiness
• Creativity
• Scariest pose
• Overall score

There will be one winning picture who will receive a £30 supermarket voucher of their choice and two runners up will receive an art kit each.

Terms and conditions will apply.

 

The post Halloween costume competition appeared first on Havebury Housing.

While most people enjoy fireworks responsibly, they can cause injury and damage to property in the wrong hands. Fireworks are explosives and should be treated with respect and only used following the manufacturer’s instructions and the firework safety code. Also, lighting bonfires in back gardens present significant risks to residents.

Did you know in 2021, there were 116 people injured by fireworks during Bonfire Night and Diwali, including 21 children under the age of 15? In the same year, during bonfire night the NHS reported a visit to its burns advice webpage every 21 seconds. This is 27% more than usual.

We have put together some simple guidance to help ensure you have a happy and safe celebration.

• The safest way to enjoy fireworks is at a large public display. You are much less likely to get hurt.
• If you buy fireworks, look for a CE or UKCA mark, and only buy from licenced retailers.
• Keep fireworks in a closed box, take them out one at a time, and close the box again each time.
• Always follow the instructions, never carry fireworks in your pocket, and never throw them.
• If the firework doesn’t go off, do not return to it (or throw it on the bonfire). It’s safest to keep away from it and dispose of it carefully the next day when you can be sure it’s properly out.
• Make sure your pets are safe, and let your neighbours know what will happen in plenty of time so they can take care of their pets.
• Be very careful with sparklers – make sure everyone wears suitable gloves, and don’t give them to kids under five (a sparkler gets 16 times hotter than your kettle).
• Be considerate about when you use them – it’s against the law to set them after 11 p.m. on most days and before seven in the morning. On bonfire night, it’s ok until midnight. On New Year’s Eve, Chinese New Year, and Diwali, it’s OK until one o’clock in the morning.
• The law also says you must not set off fireworks (including sparklers) in the street or any other public place, so keep them in the garden. This also means that if you don’t have a private garden, you won’t be able to use fireworks.
• Please don’t light a bonfire, even in your own garden. The risk is very high, and even a small bonfire can cause a lot of damage.

Sparkler safety

Sparklers are often viewed as being harmless but they burn at fierce temperatures, equivalent to a welding torch. Follow these top tips for sparkler safety:

• It is recommended that sparklers are not given to under-5s.
• Make sure everyone handling sparklers wears gloves.
• Hold sparklers at arm’s length while being lit and light them one at a time.
• Don’t wave sparklers about close to other people.
• Never hold a baby in your arms while you are holding a sparkler.
• When the sparkler has finished put it in a bucket of cold water.

RoSPA has further guidance on how you can be safe this firework season.

Stay safe and be considerate.

The post Firework safety 2024 appeared first on Havebury Housing.

Local pumpkin patches

• Mrs G’s Pumpkin Patch in Garboldisham. Open from 19 October to 31 October. A firm favourite, adults pay £3.50 entry, over 2’s £1.00 and under 2’s go in free. There is free parking on site and they accept cash and card. The offer a wide range of activities for the whole family to get involved in and some beautiful pumpkins to pick. Plus for the adults a wonderful selection of food and drinks including cakes, coffee and pizza! Find out more here.
• Undley Farm in Beck Row. Open from 5 October – 31 October. Pumpkin picking direct from the vines. With thousands of pumpkins available and approximately 25 varieties of pumpkin on offer – ranging from small to huge. There is also a Halloween maze to get lost in, giant inflatables, Halloween stalls and so much more. Admission is free but you do need to book on their website so they can manage numbers.
• Rougham Pumpkins – Just in time for Halloween, Rougham Estate has a vast, beautiful field full of hundreds of thousands of pumpkins, squashes and gourds in over 20 different varieties. There is plenty more to enjoy too, with room for children to run and climb, space to picnic, deckchairs, sandpits, ice cream, pedal tractors and small pumpkin games for the family, as well as lots of fabulous photo opportunities and a delicious range of food trucks including a bar. With free entrance and parking. Find out more here.

Activities for the whole family to enjoy

Suffolk

• If your child is entitled to free school meals and/or meet other eligibility criteria and live in Suffolk Abbeycroft Leisure have some exciting activities for you to check out across the local area. Their adventure days include fire lighting, archery, axe throwing swimming and more. Breakfast, lunch and snacks are included. 28 October – 1 November. Find out more here.
• Come along to Brandon Country Park and pick up a £1.50 trail sheet from the cafe. Follow the trail, solving the clues along the way, to help find the special word and then return to the cafe to collect a small prize. £1.50 per quiz sheet. For more details click here.
• Children aged 6+ are invited to join The Crafty Foxes at The Apex in October for some Halloween themed fun! They will make their own personalised Halloween tote bag to put all their ‘trick or treat’ sweeties in. They’ll also make a Halloween glow lantern to guide them on their way later in the evening when it gets dark. Fancy dress is welcomed! All materials supplied as well as an apron. Children will take home their tote bag and glow lantern, which includes a battery tea light in. £20 per child and you can find out more information here.
• Fenchanted Halloween Family Day Out – join in on a family day of fun and adventure. Whether you want the thrill of laser tag, corn canons and fairground rides, to take a donkey ride and visit their animal petting zoo they have something for everyone. For more information on ticket prices and dates visit their website.

Norfolk

• Thetford forest – Hocus Pocus event 31 October 10am – 4pm. Head to High Lodge for a Halloween themed day of family activities on Thursday 31 October with crafts, entertainment, and prizes to be won. Whilst on site try-out the Scarecrow Trail, Go Ape Sundown Sessions or Halloween themed archery during ‘High Lodge Hocus Pocus’ – available for the whole of October half term. Find out more here.
• Thetford Cloverfields Pumpkin Trail – A free event for everyone to enjoy. Grab your free map from Thetford Garden Centre from 26 October and follow the trail to discover exciting displays and spooky creations. Find out more here.
• Pettitts Adventure Park – Head over to Pettitts for a day of spooky fun. Every paying child will get a free pumpkin to carve and take home plus many other exciting activities. 25 October – 3 November. Find out more here.

Do you know of any events happening in your local area? Please let us know by sending an email to communications@havebury.com

The post Things to do in October half term appeared first on Havebury Housing.

Our annual report provides performance information about the services we provide, including:

• Repairs and maintenance
• Safety and compliance
• Our support fund
• Engagement
• Complaints and compliments
• Our Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs)
• Communication
• Your community
• Our homes
• Sustainability

Click here to view our 2023-24 annual report.

Our chief executive, Andrew Smith, says:

“I am pleased to present to you our annual report for the year 2023-24. This report provides an overview of our performance from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024, highlighting some of our achievements, challenges, and future plans. You, our residents, continue to be at the very heart of everything that we do and we look forward to the coming year.”

This short video provides an overview of our year. 

Click here to view our 2023-24 financial statements.

Click here to view our 2023-24 value for money statement.

The post Our 2023-24 annual report appeared first on Havebury Housing.

The RSH inspects housing providers like us every four years, to assess how well we’re delivering our regulatory requirements.

There are three key areas, with each being awarded a score between 1 and 4, with one being the highest.

Governance (G) – Assesses how well we’re run.

Viability (V) – Assesses how financially strong we are.

Consumer (C) – This is a new rating which assesses housing associations against the new consumer standards and it came into force on 1 April 2024. You can read more about these here. These standards strengthen the accountability for housing providers in delivering good quality homes and services. We were one of the first providers to have this included as part of the inspection.

Our regulatory grading was published today, 25 September, and we are pleased to share that we maintained our G1/V2 ratings, and we were also awarded a C1.

The RSH gathered information through observing our Resident Experience Committee and a Board meeting, speaking to residents, interviewing the Executive team and reviewing documents.

In its judgement, which you can read in full here, it recognised that:

G

• That we demonstrated the effectiveness of our governance arrangements, and that we effectively manage our risks to deliver our strategic objectives and improve our services to residents.
• There’s comprehensive performance and risk monitoring and construct challenge on areas of underperformance.

V

• That we have the financial capacity to manage a range of risk scenarios and have access to sufficient liquidity.
• We have a fully funded business plan and effective treasury management arrangements.

C

• We know the condition of our homes well, so can make accurate decisions on investment into maintaining and improving these.
• That we provide an effective repairs and maintenance service and take into account resident vulnerabilities.
• We offer support to residents throughout tenancies, including the support fund and specialist officers.
• That our complaint approach is well publicised, and our Resident Experience Committee monitors performance of this.
• That we gather residents’ views in a range of ways, with evidence of how we use this to make changes to services.
• That we hold some resident information so we can tailor services to meet diverse needs.

Andrew Smith, chief executive, said “We’re delighted that the Regulator of Social Housing has recognised the strength of our governance and financial performance, with our continued investment in our existing homes and our ambitious programme to deliver around 210 new homes a year. They also recognised how we engage with our residents, understand their needs and work with them when things go wrong to put it right and learn.”

Next steps

It’s great to know that the RSH is confident that we are meeting the new consumer standards. But that doesn’t mean our work will stop to ensure that we are providing the best service possible.

Over the next few months, we’ll continue collecting more information about residents to ensure we can tailor our services to their needs and requirements. This includes understanding what service adjustments we need to make and we’re doing some further work around how we can support our most vulnerable residents

We will shortly also be doing some consultation around resident engagement. We’ll be publishing this before Christmas, so please get involved and let us know how you want to do this.  You can read more about our how you get involved with us here.

Please continue to provide your feedback to us, whether this is through a compliment or complaint, a survey after you’ve had a service from us or if you’re contacted to complete a Tenant Satisfaction Survey. Through your feedback, we can continue to see what works well and what we need to improve.

The post We’ve been awarded the top consumer grade by the Regulator of Social Housing appeared first on Havebury Housing.

If your enquiry concerns grounds maintenance, tree issues, fly-tips, or abandoned vehicles, you can log it via myHavebury.

All other services will be running as usual, and you can find a full list of extension numbers here.

Thank you for your co-operation.

The post Team training – Tuesday 1 October 2024 appeared first on Havebury Housing.

In May 2023, we told you that we were starting to work towards becoming accredited by DAHA to ensure we deliver safe and effective responses to domestic abuse.

DAHA accreditation is the UK benchmark for how housing providers should respond to domestic abuse. It is the only project in the UK offering domestic abuse accreditation for the housing sector.

Over the past 15 months, we have been focussing on eight priority areas:

• Policies and procedures (both internal and external)
• Safety-led case management
• Survivor-led support
• Intersectional and anti-racist practice
• Perpetrator accountability
• Partnerships and collaboration
• Staff development and support
• Publicity and raising awareness

The process involved 12 members across Havebury from a variety of different teams, including Supported, Neighbourhood and Estates, Communications, People, Repairs and Health Safety, and Facilities, who created a working group to ensure that we were meeting the requirements in the above priority areas and, if we weren’t, what we needed to do to ensure we not only met the standard but went above it.

Amy St Ledger, assistant director of customer and housing services explains:

“Achieving DAHA accreditation was more than just getting certificated. We wanted to make sure that our services and responses to survivors of domestic abuse were the best they could be. We wanted to make a difference and to work with sector-leading experts to ensure our teams had all the tools to help and respond in the best way possible.

We went through this process at a tricky time. DAHA changed its accreditation process when we started out, so we had to change our approach and provide different levels of evidence. This revised framework and process, combined with a restructure here, caused us to take longer to evidence the standards than we initially anticipated but we are confident, but this hard work paid off in us achieving a robust domestic abuse response that we can be proud of.

This is not the end for us. We are dedicated to continuously improving our support and services to survivors. We are committed to ensuring our staff feel confident and have all the necessary tools to respond to any disclosures made to us.”

Gillian Spriggs, tenancy sustainment and hoarding officer explains:

“I wanted to get involved with the DAHA accreditation, as our residents should be confident that we understand the impact domestic abuse can have. This accreditation will also reassure them that we will do everything possible to help resolve matters proactively. Having recently been involved in a very serious case of domestic abuse, I have seen first-hand how our teams work together to get the best possible outcome. The resident has now moved to a new home and is safe.”

Lauren Eden, external communications advisor says:

“Being a part of this working group was important to me. I wanted to understand how I can create content so that our residents feel supported, ensuring we are using best practices. I am really pleased that all the hard work from teams across Havebury have been recognised with our accreditation and I look forward to being able to further support residents in whatever channel they choose to connect with us.”

Charlotte Arbuthnot, people business partner says:

“I am delighted that we have achieved DAHA accreditation. This involved collaboration across a number of teams at Havebury, with the result that we can now deliver safe and effective responses to domestic abuse, both for our residents and members of staff”.

Talking about our accreditation, Sharon Crosby, DAHA Senior Regional Lead says:

“Havebury has demonstrated that they meet all eight standards of the DAHA accreditation framework by providing not only a response to domestic abuse that is trauma-informed and survivor-led but also by investing in training and systems that help staff identify the early signs of domestic abuse to know how to have conversations about this with both residents and staff and to share information per the co-ordinated community response to improve outcomes for those experiencing domestic abuse and their families.

Some of the commitments to support this include designing a bespoke case management system for domestic abuse cases separate from ASB, clearly flagging DA and giving prompts at each stage so that staff know what next steps to take. The system can be adapted in-house and specifically by the DA lead when necessary to ensure that it is working effectively for all, that information is shared promptly, and that action is taken to safeguard survivors whilst holding those who cause harm accountable but simultaneously signposting and providing support to them where appropriate and safe to do so. Staff spoke of a huge shift in their confidence in supporting survivors of domestic abuse since they started their progression towards achieving DAHA accreditation, and this was also recognised by partner agencies who spoke of a marked improvement in the support given and survivor satisfaction. Actions taken were swift regarding making properties safer so families could stay with their support networks or assisting them to move on when desired, including management moves.

The network of DA champions was strong, and the staff survey that they conducted identified even more people willing to volunteer as champions, which speaks of the level of engagement in the desire to improve situations for staff and residents experiencing domestic abuse at Havebury.

We were also pleased to see that Havebury has signed up to Unison’s Anti-Racism Charter and are excited to see how an Anti-Racist and Intersectional approach continues to build throughout our ongoing work with Havebury to strengthen the response even further.”

What does this mean for you?
Put simply, if you need to reach out to us because you, or someone you know, is a victim of domestic abuse, our team will be fully trained to support you.

Where can you get support?
If you are a victim of domestic abuse, you can reach out and speak to one of our domestic abuse champions.
You can also message us on social media or come to our office.

The post We have achieved accreditation with the Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance (DAHA) appeared first on Havebury Housing.