SAHA's Ladder of Involvement shows the different ways in which residents can become involved and have an influence on the services they receive. Click on the link to look at the options available.

Residents can chose the option for becoming involved, which best suits their individual circumstances. Some people may have different skills to offer, different interests, or simply more time to spare, so SAHA want to cater for all of these needs.

The Ladder was devised by SAHA's Agency Services department as part of its Resident Involvement Training.

How can you be Involved?

You can be involved in various ways at different levels. These include:

Residents Newsletter

SAHA publishes four resident newsletters per year.

Annual Report

An Annual Report is sent to each Resident.

Website

SAHA's website www.saha.org.uk is continually updated and developed, providing information about all aspects of its services

Annual Residents Survey

Each year we carry out a survey of all our residents to find out about what they think of their homes and of the service they received from SAHA.  The information received from the survey will be used to improve our services.

Customer Service Centre Surveys

Customer Services Officers carry out additional surveys to monitor various aspects of our service to residents. These are:

Major Repair Surveys -  Each year we survey all of our residents to understand what their priorities are as far as planned maintenance is concerned for their property and their estate. This information is used to inform our programme so it matches your needs.

New Development Surveys -  Questionnaires are sent to all residents who have moved into brand new homes.  The purpose of this survey is to obtain feedback from residents about the homes and services that have been provided with.

Other Satisfaction Surveys -  Customer Services phone a percentage of our residents to get feedback on a number of service areas, such as the satisfaction of completed repairs, the satisfaction of resolved complaints, the satisfaction of service given to new tenants.

Residents Meetings

SAHA hold a number of resident meetings every year. This gives residents an opportunity to talk to a member of staff, usually the local Housing Officer, on specific issues and give one to one feedback.  You can contact your Housing Officer to find out when these meetings are scheduled, normally an agenda is distributed to residents before the meeting and minutes are issued after the meeting, to inform everyone what has been discussed.

Scheme ‘Vision of Excellence’

This involves the Housing Officer holding a meeting with residents, to identify what they think of the scheme ‘now’, and how they would see the scheme if it was, in their opinion 'excellent'. Together the Housing Officer and residents agree and agree on an action plan to work towards an 'excellent' scheme (with actions for both SAHA and the residents.) This is monitored and reviewed every 12 months.

Resident Focus Groups

Focus groups are held from time to time to gain feedback on particular service areas. These are one-off sessions, usually only a couple of hours long and held locally.

Email Consultation Group

Residents take part in the Email Consultation Group by providing their email address and tenant number, they should be informed that this is on their tenancy agreement, Allpay card, or can be obtained by contacting the Customer Service Centre. Each survey is short; 5-10 questions, requiring yes/no or 1-5 type responses, taking under one minute for residents to complete. This is a quick convenient method for resident consultation on various issues.

'A Day in the Life of...'

The association provides a camcorder to residents to record their experiences of being a resident first hand. This allows residents to record what happens where they live on a day-to-day basis, and visually communicate how improvements could be made to the services they receive from SAHA.

Resident Associations

SAHA has a few residents' associations.  They can have a constitution, which lays out the rules of the association and explains its objectives.  Although residents' associations may have slightly different objectives, most include improving where they live and the surrounding area, bringing residents together socially and representing resident members when talking to people from the local authority or SAHA. TARA's (Tenants and Residents Associations) may be entitled to a set up grant, click on the link for more details. SAHA is keen to see more residents setting up associations and, if required, we will attend meetings and offer help and advice.  Support is offered also to those residents who wish to have informal groups rather than formal associations.

Customer Panel

SAHA has a Customer Panel consisting of 90 residents from foyers, centres and general needs housing, who are consulted on a regular basis on various issues, such as potential policy or procedural changes. Their feedback is taken into consideration before any changes are made and their ideas are incorporated as much as possible. If you would like to join the Customer Panel, please contact Customer Services or the Resident Involvement Co-ordinator.

Resident Editorial Group

The group is made up of a small number of residents, approx 8-10, split between the north and south. Meetings are chaired by a resident and facilitated by the Resident Involvement Coordinator. Meetings occur alternately North and South on a quarterly basis to ensure all members get an opportunity to attend locally.

The group is responsible for reviewing all key documents that SAHA provides to residents to ensure that they are written in plain English and are presented in a user friendly way. Documents are provided to the members (max 3) in advance of the meeting so they can be reviewed at the resident’s leisure before the meeting. At the meeting the language and presentation of each is debated along with issues such as corporate branding.

All documents that go through the group are branded ‘approved by residents’ to demonstrate the group’s valuable input.

For further deails about:

Resident Working Group Members
Resident Committee Members
Resident Board Members

Or, to register your interest in becoming more involved, please email haveyoursay@saha.org.uk   -  the dedicated email address for all SAHA's Resident Involvement.

Alternatively, if you would like to speak to a member of the Customer Services team to discuss how to become involved at SAHA, please call 0800 970 6363, or ask to speak to the Resident Involvement Co-ordinator.