Tenant Empowerment Grants – supporting innovation
Michelle Glavin reports on the latest quarter’s successful TEG bids, showing the array of community engagement across Wales.
Tenant Group – V2C Community Forum
Project Name – Working for the Communities of Bridgend County
TEG Agent – CG Consultancy
Project costs – £14,580
TEG awarded – £9,250
The V2C Community Forum wants to refocus the role and purpose of the forum to meet the needs of the communities of Bridgend County and to more fully meet the outcomes of the local tenant participation strategy.
A work programme has been created to increase engagement with all tenants, including hard to reach groups and to establish the forum as a relevant organisation making a difference to the communities and to the way that V2C provides services to residents. One of the challenges is to make V2C tenants aware that all tenants within the county are members of the Forum.
Tenant Group – Tai Eryri tenants
Project Name – The health and wellbeing project
TEG Agent – TPAS Cymru
Project costs – £6,035
TEG awarded – £4,431
This project is based on the feedback from tenants highlighting the need for their landlord to support them with developing projects that will empower tenants and residents to improve the health and wellbeing of their communities.
The project activities will include presentations to community groups, walkabouts and a training session on how to manage a project.
Tenant Group – Supported Housing Consortium
Project Name – New Horizons – Measuring Up
TEG Agent – TPAS Cymru
Project costs – £9,400
TEG awarded – £6,900
The supported housing schemes are keen to get actively involved in becoming resident/tenant auditors. They have been looking to gain more skills and knowledge to influence their housing providers to identify improvements to their housing services to meet the needs of the residents.
They will do this by raising awareness of the project, attending training sessions, arranging a study visit and preparing for a pilot audit.
Tenant Group – ANTRA’s youth group
Project Name – Newydd – ANTRA Youth TEG
TEG Agent – Open Communities
Project costs – £8,000
TEG awarded – £5,870
The project would introduce youth group members to opportunities to access further qualifications centred on youth community work. It will aim to achieve a number of objectives:
- volunteers receive appropriate support
- training is provided to help build confidence
- the group develops its own process for on-going assessment
- continued recruitment of young people and up-skilling new recruits
- accredited training for leadership roles
- continued development of the groups\’ work skills and knowledge
Tenant Group – Tenants Voice
Project Name – Tai Cantref – Tenants Mentoring Group
TEG Agent – Open Communities
Project costs – £12,000
TEG awarded – £8,800
This project aims to build on Cantref’s existing volunteering policy and equip tenants with the skills to become tenant mentors. The mentoring group will provide an information signposting service to the wider tenant community on issues around community regeneration and involvement opportunities as well as specific issues such as the imminent changes to housing benefit funding employment and training skills and options to mitigate the impact of welfare reform.
Tenant Group – Disabled Tenants Communication Group
Project Name – Disabled Tenants get active
TEG Agent – TPAS Cymru
Project costs – £8,687
TEG awarded – £6,375
The project aims to increase the involvement of disabled tenants in improving services within work of Monmouthshire Housing Association (MHA) in order to ensure that services reflect their needs.
The intended outcomes include increasing the numbers of tenants getting involved and creating a database of interested tenants who would be contacted about different services.
Tenant Group – Wallich Residents and Service Users
Project Name – The Wallich Residents and Service Users Assessors Project
TEG Agent – TPAS Cymru
Project costs – £10,224
TEG awarded – £7,500
The group of service users will be enabled to be involved in setting service standards and assessing services, in order to improve services and to increase their chances of gaining employment by developing a range of skills and knowledge. They will do this by promoting the project, taking part in an information session and developing an action plan.
For further information on TEG grants contact Michelle.Glavin@cih.cymru or phone 029 2076 5760.