Support provision management overview
Increasingly, housing organisations are upscaling their range of tenancy support services, specifically targeting those existing tenants who need an element of help in order to maintain their tenancy, as well as those people who have been offered a tenancy and need assistance to ensure a positive start. The success of these services is in the ability to adapt each specific occurrence to meet the individual needs and circumstances of the tenant. Complex issues around general health, mental disorder, debt management, drug and alcohol dependencies all have a detrimental impact on a person's ability to ultimately sustain their tenancy, and which can only be managed via channelled support. Through a continual programme of staff development and training, housing organisations are able to provide a first response mechanism for all tenants within their jurisdiction, often acting as a signposting service to other partner agencies with specialist skills. Through proactive stakeholder engagement, this approach can map those tenants who are feeling isolated as a result of their current problems through to tailored support plans aimed at addressing their immediate and longer term issues, including mitigating the risk of eviction. Forward-thinking housing organisations are not just focused on tackling difficult problems identified for existing tenants; they can also provide in-house services for new tenants who need basic support with finding the right utility suppliers, sourcing furniture, managing financial affairs on a tight budget or the route to claiming benefits.
The Support module within Civica Cx Housing enables an organisation to record, manage and maintain all information pertinent to each request for help in a dedicated case file, commencing with the formal assessment process and then, where applicable, progressing onto the compilation of a support plan. The framework of each case is derived from any number of custom support provision types - classified as Assessment or Support Plan - that are predefined by the end user, in line with their own overarching advice service strategy and local influencing factors. The management and progression of all support provision cases is then structured around logical tasks - which can be thought of as a series of inter-connected “to-do” lists for each contributing owner. Rather than linking all identified tasks directly to the case, these are first grouped together within the support provision type, either as discrete actions or as part of a workflow path. This inherent functionality not only keeps all responsible staff members aware of approaching deadlines, with warnings and reminders automatically triggered in accordance with configured service standards, but also these activity-driven task lists are applied consistently to all cases operating under the same provision type, therefore ensuring that every case is managed in the same way, irrespective of owner.
Separate help articles have been created for each key aspect of support provision management, including: