Here, Lyndsey, an RWP housing officer, discusses the variety of ways that she supports tenants, including working together with support professionals and tenants’ families, and how she adapts her communication style to ensure all tenants are receiving the very best support that meets their needs.

Supported living helps people with a learning disability to lead full, independent lives with support as and when they need it. This improves people’s quality of life by giving them greater choice and control over their living space and activities, which in turn gives them autonomy and dignity.

Supporting tenants throughout their tenancy

I support our tenants throughout the duration of their tenancy, from making sure they understand their tenancy agreement and up until they make the decision to move out. This will include supporting tenants to apply for housing benefit, supporting them if they have any issues like unresolved repairs, issues with antisocial behaviour, and requests for adaptations. I also inform tenants about the latest opportunities that we have in place for tenant involvement and support them if they want to become involved.

Our tenants have a wide range of abilities, so it’s important to make sure we are led by them and ask what they’d like support with. As we go through the tenancy sign-up process, and at our annual reviews, we check what our tenants would like additional support with. When a tenant does need support with an issue, we discuss the options with them and explain what we can. This might involve visiting them and going through a benefit application together or explaining how to report and log incidents of antisocial behaviour.

Adapting your communication style

It’s extremely important to check each tenant’s preferred method of communication and try to adapt to what suits them best. Some people find it much easier to have a conversation over text message or email and others may prefer speaking face to face. Sometimes sign interpreters will be needed and we’ll arrange that. Some tenants might just need you to spend a little longer with them to go through things slowly. We quite often find tenants need documents with pictures or larger print. For example, I recently transcribed a tenancy agreement in a larger font and all capitals because the person told me that this was how they found documents easiest to read.

Face-to-face visits

RWP housing officers will carry out at least two visits a year to each property to visit tenants to check they’re happy with the services we provide and see if they have any questions or other issues that we can support them with. Face-to-face visits are important because you can get a better rapport with people and allow them to share their thoughts and feelings. I enjoy talking about social activities and finding out what people have been up to and their upcoming plans. It’s nice to chat about things that interest tenants as it helps us to build up a relationship and get to know people better.

I think as we become more focussed on digital services it’d be great to try and support tenants to have online meetings with us, then they can see us even more and we can further improve our visibility in areas that are sometimes quite geographically isolated.

Social activities at supported living schemes

Our supported living schemes do a great job in supporting people to be independent. It’s lovely to see group social activities take place, such as chippy/Chinese takeaway nights, gardening club, garden projects, and weekly arts therapy and crafts sessions. It’s just as important to make sure that people can pursue their individual interests. For example, at a property in Stockport one of our tenants enjoys singing, so support staff arrange for someone to visit and spend time with her singing. At most schemes that I visit, the tenants value day-to-day activities, like help to do their weekly shop, making an evening meal or going out to the pub to meet friends.

Supporting people with a learning disability

A person with a learning disability will often have lots of people involved in their life – family, support agencies, social services, health services, occupational therapy, benefits services, and then there’s us, their housing provider. It’s important to understand the different roles professionals have so that you can support the tenant and their family. At the start of a tenancy, it can be very overwhelming, as it is for anyone moving house, especially if the person has previously always lived with their family. Throughout the tenancy, we check at our visits if their needs have changed, if they’re happy with our services, and if there’s anything they’re unsure of. Teams within the group are on hand to signpost tenants to additional help, such as community safety, income collection, health and wellbeing, repairs and property services.

Helping to improve accessibility

There are lots of barriers for people with a learning disability, from physical barriers, such as inaccessible buildings, to virtual barriers, such as having limited IT skills or not having used online services before. We can support people to use online services, such as applying for housing benefit online or registering for a choice-based lettings site. We can support tenants to access any physical adaptations within the property, and signpost them to occupational therapy services.

An occupational therapist will visit to assess and then provide a report to tell us what the person needs, such as handrails or specialist bath equipment, and how they should be positioned. Once we have the report, the work will be organised either through our aids and adaptations team or through the local authority using a disabled facilities grant (DFG). Some recent examples include bespoke ramps for wheelchair access to properties, fitting door hold-open devices which allow doors to remain open for people to pass through (but they close automatically if the fire alarm sounds), and fitting fold-down shower seats and handrails.

Case study: Meet Alex

Alex lives in one of our supported living homes in South West London. He shares his home with Josh and Ali and has family who live nearby in London.

Alex lived with his family until moving into his supported living home five years ago and has been supported by staff from United Response.

Support to learn new skills

Since moving into his home, Alex has been supported by his support worker from United Response, Matthew, to cook and plan meals, learning how to do housework, and with exercising in the gym.

Alex said: “I had help with chores, washing, and cooking.” Alex shares how Matthew has helped him stay motivated and over the years build up his confidence.

“I help Alex with motivation, personal hygiene, cooking food, and day-to-day things”, says Matthew.

Alex is supported by staff to keep his room clean and tidy. “It takes me about fifteen minutes to clean my room. I do it during my one-to-one time on a Tuesday and Friday.”

They often both enjoy cooking together. “Alex has gone from a one or two on the cooking scale and now I would rather eat his food than a takeaway.” Matthew shares how over the years he has seen “Alex’s confidence build up” from the skills that he has built and developed.

Matthew supports Alex to say active and they enjoy working out together at the local YMCA centre. “We go to the gym together, and we have enjoyed doing bench work at a YMCA centre in London. We have used the outdoor gym there and have been to the tennis courts there too,” says Alex.

Alex has a great friendship with Matthew. “We have a friendship, even if he did something in the future, we’d still see each other,” says Alex.

A love for cooking

Cooking is a big passion for Alex. “Cooking has always been a family affair. My mum and her mum and my sister were cooks. I was always around food. I like food and I wanted to cook at home.”

He enjoys baking and trying out different recipes in his wok. “I’ve made brownies, lemon zest cake, and I know how to make pasta. My mum taught me how to make spaghetti bolognaise.”

Alex has a collection of recipe books which he uses to make different recipes. He also uses lots of herbs. “I have my own shelf of herbs. I use rosemary and thyme if I’m roasting something.”

Alex’s interests

Alex likes his room, especially his Coca-Cola fridge and his geisha doll, as he’s really interested in Japanese culture. He also enjoys sitting in his big, relaxing chair to play games on his PlayStation.

Alex will often spend time in the local community, going out for walks nearby and going to the local supermarket to buy ingredients to make tasty recipes. He also has a passion for bikes and enjoys fixing bikes. “I know how to fix bikes from scratch.”

RWP has made this video of Alex and Matthew.