Human rights: the bricks and mortar of equality

Human rights

the bricks and mortar of equality

human rights training toolkit

a shared value venture

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“We’ve had equality training before and we’ve had customer

service training before. This was both:

real value for money.”David Feiven

Communications Manager

Think you know about human rights?Think againHuman rights are directly relevant to the provision of social housing. Opposite are just a few examples of how they can be used to improve the quality of your tenants’ services.

On the following pages, you’ll find even more…

The right tofree expression…

The right toprivacy…

The right to peacefully enjoy possessions…

The rightto dignity…

A tenants group organised a campaign against an association’s allocations policy. While they didn’t agree with the campaign, managers agreed to engage with the group to protect their rights.

Although the policy didn’t change, customers rated the association highly on its accountability.

Some associations have received complaints that contractors are going into people’s rooms unnecessarily or asking intrusive questions.

Creating a quality standard around privacy for contractors could help protect tenants’ rights.

To protect this right, a housing association asked its customers what threatened their safety and security.

It came up with a list of issues that were important for tenants and which people didn’t mind the association acting on.

We all know cases of customers having been left for days without access to a toilet or hot water.

One association came to an agreement with contractors to ensure repairs affecting people’s dignity were prioritised.

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People don’t normally associate ‘human rights’ with housing associations. I think they should, and I’ll try and explain why.

The new TSA regulatory framework throws up a whole new range of challenges. Providing value for money. Empowering people. Understanding the diverse needs of tenants.

I don’t think we can meet these challenges with our same old approach to equality.

That way of doing things ignored the potential for equality to improve tenants’ experiences. Because it focused on equality groups, it didn’t help us identify the different needs of individuals. And it certainly didn’t help develop efficient, streamlined equality initiatives.

A human rights based approach can change all that. I’ve seen the difference it’s made with my own staff. By focusing on our commonalities – and not our differences – it provides a refreshing change to traditional equalities practice.

This guide will take you through some of the key aspects of the human rights training that has been developed by brap.

My staff found it energising, relevant, and revelatory. I hope by the end of this guide you will understand why.

Jonathan DriffillManaging Director, Friendship Chair, brap

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“When the training finishes, the learning doesn’t stop.”

Housing associations in the West Midlands spend over £1 million a year on equalities training. For that much money, shouldn’t the learning last more than a few days?

We think it should.

That’s why as part of the programme we’ve developed a learning journal so staff can track their progress in embedding human rights in their work.

The journal offers the opportunity to build on and extend the work started in the training sessions. It’s intended to facilitate discussion with managers in personal development meetings and has proved very, very popular in the past.

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“The training resources reflected real issues we actually face.”

Have you ever been on equalities training that bears little or no resemblance to the problems you actually face on a day-to-day basis? It doesn’t really motivate staff to treat customers fairly.

This programme starts with a discussion of how human rights relate to equality and diversity in the context of social housing. It explores how to balance the diverse needs of customers when resources are scarce; how to consult traditionally excluded people to find out what they really think; and other equally important issues.

All the training materials are specifically tailored to reflect real challenges staff face. For example, all the case studies have been devised after interviewing housing association staff to ensure they are realistic, relevant, and grounded.

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“I’ve realised it can be easy not to stay up to date.The stuff around equality law was eye-opening.”

Over 70% of managers in the public sector are unsureof what the Equality Act means for their organisations. This training ensures you’re not one of them.

In an interesting and informative way, the programme explains to you and your staff relevant legislative duties and ways of ensuring compliance with TSA regulations.

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“The course builds confidence, not reliance on outside specialists.”

If we haven’t made you excited about human rights by the end of the programme, we haven’t succeeded.

The training isn’t about memorising the ‘right’ terms or learning a list of DOs and DON’Ts. It’s about giving you the confidence, skills, and understanding to deal with a range of equality issues that might spring up during a typical – or untypical – day at work.

We know that after training with brap, you’ll want to take ownership of equality within your organisation and tailor it to your own specific needs and concerns. Our programme is designed to help you do just that.

Not only does it contain a range of exercises and training materials so your managers can explore equality issues with their staff, but it also offers an opportunity to train internal staff members to run ‘human rights in housing’sessions themselves.

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So, what’s the programme look like?We’ll take you through it, step-by-step…

There are four stages to the programme and it normally last for about four months.

You don’t have to engage in all the stages and we can adapt the programme to meet the needs and resources of your association.

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Stage 1Shaping the programme

This is an opportunity for us to get to know your organisation and understand the equality and human rights challenges you’ve faced in the past.

This is also a good chance to discover your organisation’s key priorities and strategic aims. We’ll explore how human rights can help you achieve those things. This will also help us tailor the programme to meet your specific needs.

We will undertake a range of activities. For example, we would:

• review customer feedbackand complaints;

• review equality monitoring data;

• talk to your board, strategicmanagement team, and other staff groups; and

• talk to service user forums andyour involved tenants.

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Stage 2Training sessions

We’ll put all the information we’ve gathered from the first stage into good use by devising relevant and engaging training sessions for frontline staff, commissioned providers, managers, board members – whoever you think could benefit from better customer service skills and an understanding of community engagement.

All the sessions are very interactive, providing people with an opportunity to reflect upon their experiences and to question what they know and what they’d like to find out about equality and human rights. Participants are also given a number of opportunities to discuss the direct relevance of human rights and equality for their day to day work.

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Stage 3Staff development and support plans

This is the chance to ensure the time and resources you’ve invested don’t go to waste.

In this stage, we support staff to use a specially developed learning journal to help them apply what they’ve learned. At the same time, we work with managers to support people in reflecting upon equality and human rights issues in supervision or other personal development contexts.

As part of this process, we provide activities which create an open and comfortable organisational culture where difficult equality and human rights issues can be discussed, explored, and taken forward.

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Stage 4Train the trainer

Many organisations have told us they want to develop their own internal capacity to deliver ‘human rights in housing’ training sessions in the future.

With this programme, you can do just that.

In the final stage, we run a ‘Train the trainer’ session with your equality leads or internal training department, explaining how to deliver this programme. Not only do we give your trainers all the relevant case studies, legislative guides, quizzes, and handouts, but we also offer regular updates on developments in equality and human rights law with suggestions on how this might affect the course.

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“I think human rights is more ‘gettable’ for staff.

It says: “I am a human and I have rights”. It’s that simple!”

Sophie HallService Improvement Manager

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Prices for the first three stages of the programme have been heavily reduced, with further reductions for the first 10 housing associations we work with.

Just to re-cap this includes

Stage 1 – developing a baseline of your organisation’s equality and human rights position; speaking to your staff and customers; developing real life case studies and training materials that address your organisation’s specific equality challenges.

Stage 2 – three full-day sessions for up to 25 people each session. We can run sessions can for frontline staff, managers, senior managers, board members and volunteers.

Stage 3 – supporting your organisation to integrate continuous learning on equality and human rights into your staff support systems through the use of a learning journal and staff development plans.The type of activity and content of each stage can be negotiated with brap and should be adapted to meet your own organisation’s needs.

Additional services include

Stage 4 – the opportunity to develop your own internal capacity to deliver ‘human rights in housing’ sessions to staff in the future. Includes periodic updates approximately every 18 months to reflect new developments in equality and human rights law and practice.

To discuss any of this further, please see our contact details on the back cover.

More information…

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Have a free taster…

Over the page, you’ll find some case studies we use as part of the training.

Remember, all these situations are things that have really happened to housing association staff.

Do you know what you would do in similar circumstances?

Can you afford not to know?

What would you do?Jenny, a mother of two, has been in the UK for five years after fleeing from Rwanda. She arrives at the housing office, distressed. She has not slept all night. She says that she needs to be re-housed as the person who has just moved in opposite her house is a murderer from Rwanda.

What would your approach be and what would you like to see happen?

What equality and human rights issues come into play here?

What would you do?A new member of the team says she’s found the informal culture of the department quite shocking. When asked to explain or give an example, she says:

“well, in their more personal conversations – which can easily be overheard – some staff use really offensive language. I’ve heard people refer to one another as queers, the ‘N’ word, bitch... in fact, just yesterday, I overheard two of the new housing officer trainees call each other ‘dykes’.

I’ve mentioned this to a couple of people, but I’m never taken seriously. They say that if the people involved don’t mind, it’s ok. If gay people call themselves ‘queers’, who are we to say anything?”

What do you think about this?

What equality and human rights issues come into play here?

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Friendship Care and Housing50 Newhall Hill, Birmingham B1 3JNTelephone: 0121 506 2800 E-mail: [email protected] Fax: 0121 236 9953

If you’d like to find out more about how to take part in the next round of the ‘human rights in housing’ programme, or if you’d just like to discuss the issues raised in this guide please contact Ghiyas Somra at brap on:

e. [email protected]

t. 0121 456 7400

How to contact us…

brap 3 Duchess Place, Hagley Road, Birmingham, B16 8NHTelephone: 0121 456 7400 E-mail: [email protected] Fax: 0121 456 7419

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