HLINks archive

Welcome to HLINks, our weekly e-bulletin which provides a round-up of the latest news, views, resources and events on housing with care matters, as well as #JeremyTalks - my overview of what caught my interest this week.

Exciting news! Yesterday registrations opened for this year's Housing LIN Summit. This week-long event takes place Monday, 27 February - Friday, 3 March 2023. We have an exciting programme for you, with ten 90mins sessions on a range of themes over the 5 days. Our thanks go out to our headline and affiliate sponsors and 40+ speakers for making this virtual Festival of Ideas possible. 

In other news, on Monday the launch of the latest Inquiry report from the APPG on Housing and Care for Older People took place in the House of Lords, addressing shared ownership for an ageing population (SO-HAPPI). I was privileged to be on the Expert Panel for Making retirement living affordable: the role of shared ownership housing for older people and to be invited to say a few words at the Parliamentary launch.

To coincide with the Summit announcement, we published a new guest blog by Shakespeare Martineau's Louise Drew in which she highlights the misconceptions about retirement housing schemes.

And, with the official launch later today, HLIN Consultancy is pleased to publish a new Housing and Care: Good Practice guide. Commissioned by SW Councils and SW ADASS, it supports councils to plan for and deliver the range of housing and care options needed by older people and working age adults with care/support needs. We will feature this in greater detail in next week's HLINks. 

Other things that caught my interest included:

• a new report by Look Ahead on young people who are experiencing a mental health crisis. 
• Wednesday's Radio 4 You and Yours features Integrated Retirement Communities
• a new planning report on specialist housing for older people by the Retirement Housing Group
• a YouTube video by Richard Humphries for the forthcoming Archbishops' Reimagining Care Commission release
• a blog by the Centre for Ageing Better's CEO Carole Easton on planning for local 'downsizing' 
• a reminder from Design for Homes that entries for the 2023 housing design awards close on 1 March
• British Geriatric Society publishes evidence on the benefits of hospital at home services

Lastly, next week sees the publication of the Archbishops' Commission on Reimagining Care. I will be in attendance and look forward to sharing its findings and recommendations with you. I also look forward to the HLIN Cymru Steering Group and the TAPPI Phase 2 Advisory Board meetings taking place next week. 

A very Happy New Year from all of us at the Housing LIN and welcome to the first issue of HLINks this year!

If you are a new subscriber to our weekly e-news, we publish this bulletin every Friday and provide a round-up of the latest news, views, resources and events on housing with care matters, as well as #JeremyTalks - an overview of what caught my interest, each week. Happy reading!

In this week's #JeremyTalks, I set out my top 5 wishes for 2023 for the specialist and supported housing sectors. 

We published two new guest blogs: the first, by Anna Cameron, Head of Growth and Service Development for Learning Disabilities at Look Ahead on how to be optimistic about social care; and the second by Dr Niamh Murtagh, Principal Investigator for ARC for the Future at the University College London (UCL), on Building an arch of resilience - ARC for the Future.

Other items that caught my interest include:

• YouTube videos by Anna Severwright from Social Care Future and Helen Herklots, the Older People’s Commissioner for Wales, on the forthcoming Archbishops’ Commission on Reimagining Care report
   
• Latest details published by DHSC on £250m funding to speed up hospital discharge
   
• Census information on housing in England and Wales from the Office for National Statistics
   
• A blog for the Campaign to End Loneliness on measuring loneliness using technology from the Housing LIN-supported DELONELINESS project at Kings College London. 
   
• Entries are now open for the Davidson Prize, ‘Somewhere to call home’.

Lastly, I was also pleased to present at the inaugural meeting of the National Housing Community of Practice on Housing for Autistic People and People with a Learning Disability, hosted by NHS England. 

Welcome to this week's #JeremyTalks, the last of the year.

In this week’s issue of HLINks we take a quick look back at our remarkable achievements in 2022. 

This week, we also published ‘Top of the Pops’, our most popular resources from 2022. 

We also published two final guest blogs of the year. The first is by Julia Ashley, Business Development Director at C&C/Aster, who draws attention to Grace House, C&C’s flagship scheme.

The second by Aviatrix’s Managing Director, Helen Bailey who shares five top tips on how to ensure catering remains the heart and soul of your care.

On Tuesday we hosted a HAPPI Hour session focussed on urban ageing and we were delighted to be joined by a cast of great speakers from Cartwright Pickard architects, Aster Group, Mita Atelier and Fundación Matia and the University of Stirling.

Lastly, please note that this is the last edition of #HLINks for the year and we will be resuming on Friday, 13 January.

On behalf of everyone in the Housing LIN team, we wish you Season’s Greeting and we look forward to 2023 as we kick off with details of our virtual spring Summit – A Festival of Ideas!

Welcome to this week's #JeremyTalks.

This week we celebrated HAPPI Awareness Week and put the spotlight on a number of HAPPI-inspired items:

The first is a blog by Cate Premble from the University of Stirling DesHCA project on how our homes can better support us as we age, with a particular focus on visual reality technology and how its application can enable older people to make more meaningful housing choices.

A second blog by Lois Beech, Senior Research Officer at Housing LIN shares her experience visiting sheltered housing, featuring Anchor, WDH and Rooftop Housing Group as best practice examples. 

And a final blog by Robin Beattie and David Dent on the Campus for Ageing & Vitality – A World leading place on the Spectrum of Independence in Newcastle with reference to the HAPPI design principles. 

On Wednesday, we announced that submissions are invited for the HAPPI category of the Housing Design Awards, won last year by Levitt Bernstein architects for their award-winning, passivhaus extra care housing scheme for Westminster City Council, Carlton Dene – recently featured on one of our HAPPI Hour webinar. 

A few other items that took my interest, include:

• I was proud to be invited to be a member of a new NHS England Sounding Board on Reablement.
• The Nationwide Foundation and Joseph Rowntree Foundation have published a report, Talking about homes: The foundations for a decent life
• Last week, Foundations held their National Healthy Housing Awards. Information about the winners can be found here.
• Public Health Wales published a literature review on cold homes and their association with health and wellbeing.

Lastly, we are always keen to hear stories, receive your good practice case studies and thought leadership. If you would like to contribute, email us at: comms@housinglin.org.uk.

Welcome to #JeremyTalks and this week's HLINks!

International Day for Persons with Disabilities took place on Saturday and, to coincide, the Housing LIN took the opportunity to address inequalities in the built environment. 

A BBC investigation found that major cities in England are failing to plan for wheelchair accessible homes. The Welsh Government reaffirmed its commitment to the social model of disability and set up a Disability Rights Taskforce. And in England, the Minister confirmed a new Disability Action Plan will be consulted upon and published in 2023.

This week we published two guest blogs. The first is by Professor Roy Sandbach, TAPPI Chair, in which he reflects on the need for practical testing of innovation in housing and care, and the other by the Housing LIN Cymru Steering Group about championing the best of Welsh housing with care and support and the role of our network in achieving this.

Last year we joined forces with ARCO and other sector leaders to call upon government to formally announce and appoint the Task Force that will focus on housing for older people. Follow our twitter campaign this month as we lend support for a Task Force that can provide sector leadership and make bold recommendations to improve the housing choices of people in later life. 

And here are several other items I want to draw your attention to:

• A series of housing-related podcasts by the Later Life Audio and Radio Cooperative
• The recent parliamentary debates/Select Committee covering the latest stage of Lord Crisp's Healthy Homes Bill and the Select Committee's report on adult social care
• A new Centre for Ageing Better YouTube video on age-friendly communications and tackling ageism in our media portrayals
• and our consultancy team was delighted to be called to present research with Learning Disability England at the NHF's webinar on the importance of supported housing.

Lastly, we are always keen to hear stories, receive your good practice case studies and thought leadership. If you would like to contribute, email us at: comms@housinglin.org.uk.

Welcome to this week's #JeremyTalks. 

We have had a whirlwind week and I'd like to specifically put the spotlight on the following activities:

Tapped up and onwards

Following the launch of Phase 2 of TAPPI and the 6 "test beds" back in late September, our new Steering Board met for the first time. We have drawn together a Board with expertise across housing, health and social care, involving statutory bodies, voluntary and commercial organisations, academia and users of services in England, Scotland, Wales and internationally. 

Health & wellbeing interventions give social value

I was also delighted to go back to Ebbsfleet Garden City, one of the first Healthy New Towns in England, this week to present at the specialist developers forum on the plans to create a health and wellbeing hub and intergenerational community at Ebbsfleet Central (the new city centre). Our consultancy team were appointed to measure the social value and the wider health dividend to help inform their masterplan and future developer investment.

Codesigning the research and evaluation

On the research front, The Open University-led Amar Bari, Amar Jibon project in East London met at Bangla Housing Association's office with people from the Bangladeshi community in East London, UK to form the Bangla Research Advisory Group (BRAG). Over the next three years, BRAG members will work in close collaboration to coproduce research and knowledge, seeking to influence housing practice and policy in this Dunhill Medical Trust funded project.   

Lastly, we are always keen to hear stories, receive your good practice case studies and thought leadership. If you would like to contribute, email us at: comms@housinglin.org.uk.

Welcome to this week's #JeremyTalks! 

Following last week's Autumn Statement, this week's HAPPI Hour put the spotlight on the cost of living crisis. We were joined by The Charity Bank, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, CHCymru (the trade body for housing associations in Wales) and WWA architects to explore how the current economic situation is affecting our sector.

On Monday, the new Housing Minister, Lucy Frazer MP, confirmed in a reply to a House of Commons question that she is committed to launching the Older People's Housing Task Force. 

On the publication front, following a series of joint workshops with NASP, HACT and Housing LIN, a new report was released on Tuesday. Innovations in Social Prescribing: The role of housing provides examples of good practice and emerging innovation from housing associations and charities across the country. If you find this of interest, take a look at our CollaborAGE Directory with a  range of community-led and collaborative practice examples.

I was also pleased to join the Shakespeare Martineau webinar on technology and to present on housing and ageing on the final day of this year's Homes UK conference at the ExCel centre in London. 

Lastly, we are always keen to hear stories, receive your good practice case studies and thought leadership. If you would like to contribute, email us at: comms@housinglin.org.uk

It's #LongevityWeek and welcome to #JeremyTalks. It's certainly been a long one! 

This week's news was dominated by the government's delayed autumn statement. It set out the government's plans to address the cost of living crisis and financial markets' turmoil, significantly impacted by its September mini-budget. Find out more here. 

In other news, we saw the publication of Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill making provision about the regulation of supported exempt accommodation and local authority oversight. There was also a new planning practice guide on housing for older people published by the RTPI followed by the launch of the TEC Alliance's new website.

I was also delighted to present at a selection of key events including:

• APPG on Housing and Care for Older People in the House of Lords about Housing LIN Consultancy work in Kirklees on the housing needs of the South Asian community;
   
• NHF older person's housing group (at C&C's impressive new vertical retirement housing scheme opposite Lords in St John's Wood, Grace House - a future Housing LIN Inspirational Achievement) about the TAPPI project;
   
• UKRI Healthy Ageing Challenge annual conference session as Chair of the homes and communities session at The Oval. 
   
• The Housing LIN Cymru Steering Group also met this week - a big thanks to Melin Homes for hosting. 

And this week's HAPPI Hour focused on Older People's Care in Housing, A Manifesto for Change. We were joined by speakers from Altair Ltd, Housing 21 and Open Age. 

Lastly, we are always keen to hear stories, receive your good practice case studies and thought leadership. If you would like to contribute, email us at: comms@housinglin.org.uk

Welcome to #JeremyTalks, week-ending Friday, 11 November 2022.

This week our HAPPI Hour put the spotlight on the work of Arcardis-IBI Group to create inclusive, neuro-diverse environments. You can now watch the recording of the webinar and access the PowerPoint presentation here.

On the publication front, we published a guest blog by OpenAGE's Alex Evans on using technology to connect older residents and reduce social isolation. We also drew attention to a collection of case studies by the Queen's Nursing Institute on specialist homelessness services and health inclusion.

In other news, I was delighted to speak at the Levelling Up Summit in Birmingham on Tuesday along with Housing 21's Bruce Moore and Abbeyfield's Abdul Ravat.

And on Thursday, members of the HoME Coalition renewed their campaign to promote accessible housing with the release of a new video and vox pops of people explaining what accessible homes mean to them. The Housing LIN is proud to be a member of this important group. 

Welcome to #JeremyTalks and this week's HLINks. I can't believe it is November already!

This week we were treated to two HAPPI Hour sessions. On Tuesday, over 180 people signed up to learn about the recent ADASS East Best Practice Guide on Coproducing the place we call home. And, on Thursday, we held our second session, this time featuring the new Local Government Association 'Housing our Ageing Population' report written by the Housing LIN. You can now watch both webinars here.

On the publication front, we published a new #Inspirational Achievement by Arcadis-IBI Group on innovation in out of hospital and long-term dementia care. We also featured two new reports, one by The Campaign to End Loneliness which sets out why the built environment matters for loneliness and a second report by ARCO on 'Future-proofing retirement living: easing the housing and care crises' by Professor Mayhew.

In other news this week, I was delighted to join the inaugural virtual meeting of the ESCR funded University of Stirling Inclusive Ageing Network and associated research projects and the Amar Bari, Amar Jibon (My home, my life) Steering Group meeting.

Lastly, I am looking forward to speaking at the Levelling Up conference in Birmingham next week!