Bringing the learnings from children’s services into housing

We’re now working with the Centre for Systemic Social Work, based in our borough’s town hall, to bring that approach to housing. It’s a core pillar of the change we’re making following the Grenfell tragedy, and the information revealed by the Grenfell Inquiry.

We can’t just lift and shift the social work model: our teams bring different perspectives and professional backstories, and work in a different context. But we all bring motivation and dedication to improving the lives of residents. And the more I see, the more I’m sure these principles can be a huge help – and that adapting them for housing is not only possible, but pretty much essential.

“[Housing and children’s services] bring different perspectives and professional backstories, and work in a different context. But we all bring motivation and dedication to improving the lives of residents”

Systemic practice encourages us to make sure that our tenants and leaseholders, or those at risk of homelessness, get the person-centred support that they need. This is particularly important when we are often working with people who are very vulnerable, or experiencing one of the worst periods of their lives.

It’s also a help to staff. Working in housing is hard right now. We owe it to everyone in our workforce to give them the best possible tools and support. And it goes further even than that. At a time when we can’t always fix someone’s problem as quickly as we’d like, measuring the success of how we interact can be a different (and more attainable) way to find motivation and job satisfaction.

I’m not saying it’s easy. In housing, we all find ourselves saying ‘no’ more often than we’d like, for reasons we all hate but understand. It’s only natural to be defensive or closed at times in those circumstances. And for people on the frontlines who don’t often feel very powerful, it’s asking a lot for them to be thoughtful about the power dynamics between them and the people they’re supporting. All this means our teams need time and support to make this approach instinctive and consistent.

We also need to work hard – as a sector, and as individual organisations – to make time for this discussion. Right now, it would be easy to pour all our management attention and professional development efforts into other challenges: new regulation, the rising tide of homelessness and the frantic push for new development, to name just a few.

For me, though, this highlights why now is the right time: raising the stakes on what we need to do, without setting the right expectations and offering the right tools for how we do it, is setting ourselves and our hardworking teams up for burnout, and likely failure.

This is a big job, then. Social care teams who have used this approach are very clear it’s not a quick fix: building and sustaining a consistent and resilient standard of systemic or relational practice can take at least a decade. Training is just the start – the hard yards come after, as we put systemic practice at the centre of our leadership, learn what it means at the coal face and hold each other accountable (and ask our residents to do the same).

All the more reason to start now.

“Social care teams who have used this approach are very clear it’s not a quick fix: building and sustaining a consistent and resilient standard of systemic or relational practice can take at least a decade”

And it’s not just our council. Camden Council has put relational practice at the heart of its work across all services – that’s one of the main things that attracted me to work there, which I’ll be doing from February.

At a recent event at the NHF’s Housing Communities summit, convened by Evie John from Inner Circle, our two boroughs were joined by Professor Vikki McCall from Stirling University, who offered brilliant insights from her work on reflective practice with students working in the sector, and Ian Wardle from A2Dominion, who has been promoting and developing similar ideas in his own organisation.

After a year or two of ploughing our furrow, it was lovely to hear about what they are doing from their own places in the sector – and just as encouraging to see the level of engagement from everyone in the audience who’d come to find out more and share their own experience.

In the coming months, we’re hoping to bring together more people from across the housing sector who want to be part of this – either because they’re doing something similar themselves, or because they’d like to try. If you’re interested in being involved in that, please get in touch.

I’m hoping this is the start of a movement – across the housing sector, and beyond – which will put human relationships at the centre of housing work.

It’s hard work, and comes easier to some people and professions than others. And there’s no set playbook, especially in the housing field – different versions will work in different contexts. We’re building and learning together.

But I do believe the core principles are potentially transformational. At a time when the sector needs energy and hope, I’ve found both in this simple, radical idea.

Dan Hawthorn, executive director for housing and social investment, Kensington and Chelsea Council