Housing LIN Cymru welcomes a new chair

The Housing LIN Cymru welcome Joanne Kirrane as our new chair in Wales. Joanne has worked across health, social care and housing for over 25 years. She is based in South Wales and is the Executive Director of People, Homes and Communities in Melin Homes. She takes over from her colleague Adrian Huckin, who very much remains a part of Housing LIN Cymru's family.

Joanne writes:

Ordinarily there would be a ‘passing of the baton’ between the outgoing and incoming chair alongside a progress position of work streams and agreed priorities, but of course the past eighteen months have not been ordinary, they have been enormously challenging, they have been extraordinary.

This presents a great opportunity. As we emerge from life dominated by Covid-19 we can redefine our priorities with renewed energy and with greater clarity about what matters. Over the coming weeks and months, I will be immersing myself in all things Housing LIN, getting in touch with members to introduce myself and to explore themes and priorities going forward for 2022.

At this point I must declare a particular interest in cross sector collaboration. I see examples of people’s lives being transformed through collaboration, when teams, individuals and organisations share a collective purpose and actively demonstrate commitment, determination and a genuine willingness to achieve outcomes.

I wonder how many collaborations are fortuitous, a matching of minds, being in the right place at the right time as opposed to being truly embedded in day to day practice? In Wales we have a policy environment and formal and informal partnership structures that exist to promote and enable cross sector collaboration and partnership working.

Collaboration as the default position of the health, social care and housing system sounds like a very grand ambition, I would really like to see what inroads we can make.