Reset Reskill and Rebuild
We asked:
Between 3 January and 28 February 2023, our Housing Community Relations team (then Lewisham Homes Community Relations) asked Lewisham Housing residents (then Lewisham Homes residents) about the most urgent challenges they and their communities faced. We also asked what personal skills residents wanted to advance or development goals they had. There were specific questions for young residents to complete, which asked them about what sort of youth activities they’d like to see prioritised in their communities and what skills or abilities they were hoping to develop in 2023.
You said:
Three hundred thirty-four responses were submitted. Most responses that provided an address were from Evelyn (18%), Sydenham (13%), Deptford (9%), Blackheath (9%) or Perry Vale (9%) wards. The most common respondent was aged 51-60 and identified as female. Across the 334 responses, some common themes emerged. We have grouped those themes below in sections, each one representing a different question:
Question: “What is your most urgent personal challenge at the moment?”
Response themes: cost of living (affording food and paying bills), personal finances, finding (improved) employment, ASB, physical health and mental health.
Question: “Thinking about your personal skills and development, what is your top personal priority for 2023?”
Response themes:physical health improvements, creative skills (sewing, knitting, making clothes, gardening, baking, and cooking), vocational skills (IT, DIY) and study (either learning English as a second or other language, or learning another language besides English).
Question: “Aside from personal concerns or goals, what is the most urgent challenge facing your household or your community in 2023?”
Response themes: cost of living, ASB, personal finances, fly-tipping and local health services.
Question: “Is there anything that the Lewisham Homes Community Relations Team could be doing to assist your household, your community or your estate?”
Response themes: youth activities, space for youth activities, community development, community activities, socialising activities for older residents and more resident consultation.
Question: “What activities are you looking forward to doing in Lewisham this year?”
Response themes: sport and physical activity, cooking, coding, digital skills, life skills and financial literacy.
We did:
We have provided an update below on the action our Housing Community Relations team have taken on each of the themes outlined above.
“What is your most urgent personal challenge at the moment?”
Alongside the council’s wider work on helping residents tackle to the cost of living crisis (which you can find out more about here: https://lewisham.gov.uk/myservices/cost-of-living), to help residents facing the cost of living crisis and struggling with their personal finances, we secured £10,000 from Travis Perkins Managed Services to serve as a hardship fund for residents to be referred to, via our Welfare Benefits team.
This fund is still in operation and has been used to provide over 100 residents with food and other essentials which they’re unable to afford themselves. We also secured £1,500 in sponsorship for the Sydenham Community Supermarket’s fundraiser, ensuring that every penny raised went straight to helping residents experiencing food insecurity. We continue to financially support the Sydenham Community Supermarket, alongside three other food aid organisations around the borough.
To support residents finding (improved) employment, we have signposted residents to the council’s Lewisham Works team. We have also created an email list of residents who are interested in hearing about employment and training opportunities and regularly share contractor vacancies or training programme information with them. Additionally, we ran our fourth iteration of Lewisham Changemakers which supports Lewisham Housing residents to develop their small business or social enterprise idea.
Anti social behaviour (ASB) is primarily managed by the ASB team within the council, but we have been taking action where we can to help residents address this. We are currently consulting residents about installing CCTV at the entrances to Milford Towers to improve the security and safety of the estate. We are also consulting residents about how they would like to see social value spent on the estate to further reduce ASB there and improve community cohesion.
To support the physical and mental health of our residents, through the Community Investment Fund we funded Therapy 4 Healing to provide targeted health and wellbeing support (including 1-1 sessions) for Lewisham Housing residents, based at the Evelyn Community Centre. Also, through the Community Investment Fund, we funded 60 UP CIC to provide a range of events at Independent Living schemes to provide older residents with active sessions to improve their physical and mental health. Finally, the Community Investment Fund also funded the Home Is Where The (He) Art Is – a zine-making programme aimed at residents who wish to explore their mental health through art.
“Thinking about your personal skills and development, what is your top personal priority for 2023?”
To address the desire respondents expressed to improve their physical health we have supported colleagues to identify and refurbish or repair play areas and multi-use game areas (MUGAs) on estates around Lewisham, including Shackleton Close, Crossfield, Wood Vale, and Honor Oak estates. Two of the projects mentioned earlier (Therapy 4 Healing and 60 UP CIC) that were funded by the Community Investment Fund are also relevant here, as they provided residents with an opportunity to take part in forms of exercise and improve their physical wellbeing.
We have worked with a range of partners to provide residents with opportunities to explore new creative skills. For example, for residents looking to try their hand at sewing or working with textiles, we secured social value funding from Smith & Byford to enable Make Mee Studios to provide free clothes mending workshops. 4 sessions were funded for residents to attend, 2 in the north and 2 in the south of the borough. Residents were able to bring their clothes and learn how to mend them – more than 35 pieces of clothing were brought to be mended. Elsewhere, we have worked with Adult Learning Lewisham to ensure Lewisham Housing residents are aware of the low-cost cooking lessons that were provided by Adult Learning Lewisham for residents interested in developing their cooking or baking skills. For those residents who are interested in growing and gardening, we have actively worked to provide those opportunities. There are a number of community growing spaces around the borough that Lewisham Housing supports by visiting sites and helping clear them up or install new features, promote opportunities for local residents to get involved, and secure social value to purchase equipment and materials. We have established a partnership with the RHS to further support these growing spaces and growers, we have worked closely with the National Trust on greening work in Evelyn ward and have supported a significant funding bid to the Veolia Community Trust for a significant growing project in New Cross Gate ward.
Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances we were unable to provide residents with resources to develop their vocational skills (IT and DIY) nor those wishing to study English as second language or learning another language besides English.
“Aside from personal concerns or goals, what is the most urgent challenge facing your household or your community in 2023?”
Three of the priorities identified by residents in response to this question have been already described (cost of living, personal finance and ASB). Alongside this work, we have also organised fly-tipping walkabouts with colleagues in Lewisham Council on 3 estates to address resident concerns about fly-tipping. Additionally, residents raised concerns about being able to access local health services. While responsibility for this naturally sits outside the portfolio of our Housing Community Relations team, we have worked with colleagues to promote local pop-up health hubs that have been happening monthly around the borough. At these pop ups residents could get a free health check, support from NHS staff and community groups, as well as join talks and workshops.
“Is there anything that the Lewisham Homes Community Relations Team could be doing to assist your household, your community or your estate?”
One of the main things that residents requested was around providing more youth activities, which is better addressed in the next section. To address requests made by residents for more space for youth activities we have supported colleagues with funding bids to improve play spaces, MUGAs and adventure playgrounds that are well used by children and young people. In addition, we have worked with colleagues in Environmental Services to identify play areas that are not in use due to easily rectifiable issues such as moss and mobilised staff to resolve these issues. We naturally support and deliver community development work and community activities on a regular basis, hopefully addressing residents’ desires for more work on these two aspects of our team’s work.
One more specific type of request that we saw was around providing more activities for older residents to socialise. The Community Relations team addressed this partly through the 60 UP CIC sessions described above, but also via The Albany which receives significant funding from Lewisham Council. It provides “Meet Me At…” a creative and social programme aimed specifically towards older adults.
Lastly, to respond to some respondents who stated a desire for improved resident consultation, we created a “You Said, We Did” webpage that during our time as Lewisham Homes and have contributed extensively to the council’s similar webpage since our transfer to Lewisham Council in October 2023. It is also worth noting that in 2024 we will be commencing our consultation on the new Lewisham Housing Resident Engagement Strategy and this consultation will play a major role in how Lewisham Council consults its residents.
“What activities are you looking forward to doing in Lewisham this year?”
The Community Relations team has taken four main actions to address the priorities identified by young respondents. On cooking, digital skills and life skills, we secured social value funding from Phoenix Compliancy Management to enable Young Lewisham Project to run a series of sessions for groups of young people. In the sessions, children and young people will learn basic cooking skills and financial literacy to help them develop their life skills. Due to unexpected delays, these sessions will happen in 2024.
On coding and digital skills, we have secured social value funding from a group of contractors (United Living, Mulalley and BSW) as well as funding from Lewisham Council’s Economy & Partnerships team to deliver another year of the Creative Coding Collective in 2024. This is a project run by The Albany and provides young people with a free 6-week introductory course to web app development that can also significantly improve their employability options.
On sport and physical exercise, we secured social value funding from Ideal Boilers to provide a 12-month free weekly sports programme, based at the Crossfield Estate MUGA (location chosen following a consultation of residents). This provides young people with weekly sports and physical activity sessions that have been going from strength to strength following its commencement in October 2023.
On educational support and mentoring, the Community Relations team has continued to fund and support the Tutors United programme of free tutoring for primary school children. Additionally, we organised a careers morning at Deptford Green School where staff from law firms on our legal services framework attended to give advice and information about careers and getting started in law.