As a Regulated Social Housing Provider, Golden Lane Housing constantly looks at ways to improve our consultation and involvement with tenants. As we work directly with autistic people and people with a learning disability, we are constantly looking at ways to make discussions about their housing accessible. After attending the Co-creating Course at the Coventry University, I was able to put into practice new and creative ways to engage with both our current tenants and any prospective tenants of Golden Lane Housing.
Details of case study. Since July 2023, I have developed consultation resources for Golden Lane Housing to work with current and prospective tenants. The aim of developing these new resources was to make conversations about housing more accessible, to engage with more tenants, and to help our tenants develop better ways of communicating with us about their homes.
Lego. I created separate rooms and used prebuilt houses to help explain our role as Landlord. By doing this, families and tenants could tell me what is important in their home – for example, showing they wanted a bath, not a shower, or that they did not want a bedroom upstairs. One prospective tenant, who I was told always threw anything in front of him, sat with me the whole time while I showed the Lego rooms and people.
I used the mini figures to explain who comes to the house, how Golden Lane Housing works and check when people come to the door.
It helped raise our tenant’s awareness further about how to keep safe. I also used small tubs of loose Lego to get prospective tenants and their circles of support to talk about living with other people and shared housing; this meant having good open discussions and lots of laughter.
Talking Boards. I adapted the story card idea to use photos of everything related to looking after your home. It was created into a flipbook that tenants can use to tell us about any issues they have with their home. The idea was to help tenants communicate about their homes without having to rely on their staff. As part of the pilot, we could see what pictures worked and did not; in particular, we wanted to ensure that the tenants understood and could talk about the pictures.
Developing and trying new ways of co-creating our resources led to more self-advocacy and autonomy by tenants. It allows tenants, alongside their circle of support, to explore and discuss their housing needs. It means that our tenants can provide valuable feedback and insight into what they want their housing to be. Thus, in turn, shaping the housing options that Golden Lane Housing are providing across the country for autistic people and people with a learning disability.
