Supporting customers
We don’t just provide homes; we offer a range of services to help support you.
Supported living
Our Partnerships colleagues work in partnership with specialist care providers to help customers who have learning difficulties. The team visit our specialist schemes on a regular basis and support customers and their support providers with ongoing tenancy and accommodation issues.
“I find my job really rewarding. I get to see someone, who’s not able to live in the community, live safely and securely in a home that meets their individual needs.”
Chris, Partnerships Coordinator (Special Projects).
You can read more about Chris here.
Wellbeing support
Our Wellbeing & Support team provides short term support to customers who are experiencing a crisis – this could be due to mental or physical health, hoarding or substance dependency. In the year they supported 489 customers.
Independent living
We provide apartments and bungalows for over 50s with support offered through Life24. Our service is tailored to individuals’ needs and ensures peace of mind for our customers and their families.
Life24
Life24 is a unique telecare and personalised support service for people of all ages. It enables independence and peace of mind.
Our Life24 service is available across Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire and is focused on visiting customers within independent living. Customers can choose from a range of support options and receive face-to-face or telephone contact.
667
personal alarm systems installed
Through this service, we are able to support customers who are struggling with daily living by working in partnership with a range of statutory and voluntary agencies.
You can find out more about Life24 here.
Erin, one of our Life24 Technicians, explains more about how our Life24 service helps customers on a daily basis.
Extra care
Our extra care schemes help customers to live independently in their homes, but with additional support from our Life24 service, should they need it.
In our extra care services we’ve developed partnership forums where customers can feed back about the services provided and influence change. Meetings are now well established and run monthly at both Quince Court, Sandy, and Chamomile Gardens, Biggleswade.
As well as these two Bedfordshire Extra Care schemes, we also have a specialist dementia scheme: Flowers House in Bletchley, Milton Keynes.
Our Life24 and Extra Care colleagues collectively completed over 66,000 wellbeing checks during the year, ensuring our most vulnerable customers remained safe and well in their homes.
Domestic abuse/safeguarding
The Domestic Abuse & Safeguarding team support our four domestic abuse (DA) refuges as well as colleagues and external professionals around concerns relating to our customers. They co-ordinate activities across Grand Union teams and liaise with local authority staff.
142
DA referrals made for customers
4
colleagues offered DA support
372
safeguarding referrals made for customers
Money and debt advice
Whilst the economic environment is still challenging, we continue to provide advice and practical support to our customers.
Our Financial Wellbeing team provides two different services – welfare benefits advice and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) authorised debt advice. Welfare benefits advice deals with all aspects of benefits from checks, claims and appeals. Debt advice is a holistic approach to a financial situation, advising debt options including insolvency and helping customers take their chosen option forward.
In the last year, there were:
1,171
Welfare Benefits referrals
110
Debt Advice referrals
We secured £3.4m in extra income for our customers through welfare benefits advice.
During the year, we also launched our Customer Support Fund, to help customers in food and/or fuel poverty, with £123k spent by the end of the year. This fund also helps customers who cannot afford furnishings, white goods or flooring, as well as clearing rent arrears for vulnerable customers needing to move or who would otherwise face eviction.
An additional £4.8k was awarded to customers from our Financial Wellbeing Support Fund to some customers working with this team. This was mainly to meet food and/or fuel poverty need.
“The advisor made the application process easy and made me feel comfortable all the way through. This eased my embarrassment at having to ask for help and advice for the first time.”
“I don’t like asking for help at all, but it was lovely to hear a friendly voice and reassurance, but also knowing there is help out there and I’m not on my own.”
“The advisor was the most helpful, friendly, kind and thoughtful person that I’ve ever met and I thank her from the bottom of my heart. I could not have managed without her.”
