Brent Housing Partnership (BHP) is committed to taking care of its vulnerable tenants and leaseholders. The housing support service aims to provide customers with help to remain independent. This is a time limited service, usually for up to two years. There is a high demand for this service.

We work closely in partnership with the Health Authority, Probation Service and the housing and social care teams at Brent Council.

We maintain a vulnerable register. A vulnerable person may be but is not limited to:

• a care leaver or young person
• someone with mental health issues
• a person over the age of 85
• a person over the age of 70 with a disability / vulnerability and living alone
• a person over the age of 60 with a form of disability. Includes those living alone with spouses who are elderly with a disability
• a person with drug or alcohol issues.

You can find help by making a self referral or by being referred by your social worker, advocate or family member.

We can provide you with a structured support system to help with:

• claiming welfare benefits
• safety and security
• family and social contacts
• developing life skills
• maintaining a tenancy
• community safety alarms.

The three stages of housing support services are referral, assessment and review processes.

Referral

We will:

1. acknowledge your referral within 7 days
2. allocate a support officer to your case and make first contact within 4 weeks
3. if no support officers are available, the person who made the referral will be informed.

Assessment

We will:

1. arrange and carry out a joint visit
2. carry out a risk assessment
3. with your help, write a support plan with clear objectives
4. give you a copy of the support plan
5. monitor your case to ensure the support plan is carried out.

Review process

We will:

1. carry out a formal review at 6 months
2. decide when to carry out the next review
3. consider if changes are necessary to the support plan
4. discuss if you are now able to live independently.

Working in partnership

To enable us to continue providing quality services, housing support team encourages customers to provide comments, complaints and feedback about our service. Service improvement is important to us and can be achieved by working in partnership with other agencies and our customers.

We will:

• have a yearly customer forum
• arrange client based forums, four times a year
• carry out a yearly customer survey
• publish the results of consultation in our publications
• display this information in our public offices.