Revealed: the social landlords backing the Harry’s Pledge campaign for carers

Julie Doyle, chief executive of housing association Longhurst Group, who is Ms Charlesworth’s mother, said: “As a society, we just don’t do enough to support those who provide care and those who need it, and that’s something I’m passionate about changing.

“As well as learning from the experiences of the carers we employ, we can gain a better understanding of the requirements of carers and disabled people that live in our homes, ensuring we provide the environment and the services they need.

“As a sector, our voices and our efforts have more impact when they’re united and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everybody that’s been involved in the Pledge so far.

“We’ve made fantastic progress in our first year but there’s still so much more to do.”

Cross Keys Homes is one housing association that has signed up to the pledge.

Claire Higgins, chief executive of Cross Keys Homes, said: “Since becoming an early adopter of Harry’s Pledge last year, we’ve actively moved forward to help support our colleagues who have additional caring responsibilities so that we can make sure we have the best support in place.

“Hayley [Harry’s mum] has been working with us, holding drop-in sessions and one-to-ones with colleagues from across the business who are carers for family members, and as a result of Hayley’s help, we have created a ‘supporting carers at work’ policy.

“This new policy provides up to an additional five days of paid leave for those with caring responsibilities and also offers a carer’s passport scheme, enabling a carer’s needs to ‘travel’ with them, describing the flexibility that is required if their job or line manager changes. Harry’s Pledge has certainly helped to raise the visibility and value of our carers and we are committed to making sure we do everything we can to support them.”

Berneslai Homes is another social landlord to have signed up. Its organisational development manager, Lynne Horton, said it was absolutely committed to improving the lives of carers.

She said: “We already think we’re pretty good in a lot of areas such as flexible working for our people around work-life balance, providing lifetime homes, carrying out adaptations for disabled people and we’re keen on improving these services, tailoring them to individual needs wherever practicable and introducing new services as required.

“After signing up to Harry’s Pledge, we launched a summit group of tenants, community members, organisations and our staff as a commitment to improving our services around the four key areas of the pledge. Although in its infancy, we’re carrying out an assessment of where we are on our journey to enable us to prioritise key areas for improvement.

“We’re excited to be working with the summit group, listening to views of carers and tailoring our services to ensure we continually improve the lives of carers and their families.”

Harry’s Pledge asks providers to sign up to the following four commitments:

As employers: To be a carer-friendly employer, supporting people with caring responsibilities by making policies carer-friendly and ensuring they can work flexibly.

In our workspaces: To make offices and community spaces as accessible as possible.

In the homes we build: To build more fully accessible homes, routinely considering accessibility in general needs stock and how more homes can be adapted.

Training and career progression: To professionalise care further with clear qualifications/career paths and lobbying for changes in pay and rewards.

By signing up to the Pledge, organisations have committed to making progress in at least one of these areas.

So far that has seen landlords carry out a range of measures, including an audit of their existing offer to unpaid carers, the introduction of new carer-friendly policies, establishing carer networks to better support staff, as well as making tangible commitments to the number of accessible homes they are going to build.

Carers UK, one of the founding partners of the Pledge, has worked with organisations to provide support and insight.

And many members also supported Habinteg’s work to call for a change in the law around accessible housing in response to a government-led consultation on improving the accessibility standards for new homes.

In the weeks to come, Inside Housing will be taking a look at the approach taken by some landlords as a result of signing up to the pledge.