Look Ahead Housing and Care produced a good practice guide to help supported housing providers plan for risk management. Look Ahead hopes that the guide will help supporting people providers improve their working practices, as well as meet the standards stipulated in the Quality Assessment Framework.
Entitled Positive Risk Taking, the good practice guide uses snapshots of a recent research project to contextualise the importance of risk assessment and highlight the problems organisations are currently facing in trying to manage this imperfect science. It acknowledges that a one size fits all approach does not work for managing risk and therefore provides a framework including check lists and pointers to help organisations develop their own risk assessment process.
Chris Hampson, Director of Strategy and Service Delivery at Look Ahead Housing and Care, commented: "We have to accept that housing vulnerable people is risky business. We know from our initial research that some organisations are still struggling to pin point what constitutes risk and how to manage it.
"This guide should be a useful tool to others, in particular small providers, working within supported housing and care, who may not yet have a robust risk management process in place. For others it may serve as a checklist against which to audit existing practices, inspiring further action and debate about risk."
Ursula Bennion was appointed as Director of Business Development at South Staffordshire Housing Association. She was previously Assistant Director (Development) at Hyde Housing Association.
Ronnie Clawson, previously Group Corporate Services Director at Peabody Trust, was appointed Director of Corporate Services at Riverside Group.
Health communications specialist Ruth Davison was appointed Director of Campaigns & Neighbourhoods at the National federation of Housing. She was previously with the National Patient Safety Agency as Interim Director of Communications.
Kamal Faizi resigned as Head of Housing & Public Protection at Newham Council, reportedly due to work pressures and family reasons. The resignation comes at a time of an enquiry into procurement procedures in the department under his responsibility.
Ian Matthews, currently a Regional Director at Guinness Trust, was appointed Chief Executive at Merlin Housing Society, which is due to take over the housing stock of South Gloucestershire Council in 2007.
The new Chief Executive at the Housing Diversity Network is Samantha Miller, who was previously North West Regional Manager for the National Housing Federation.
John Cross, Chief Executive of Bedfordshire Pilgrims Housing Association, is the National Housing Federation's new Chair. He was elected unopposed after nominations closed towards the end of September. He had been the Board's recommendation for Chair under the recognised good governance practice of succession planning.
Deborah Shackleton, Chief Executive of The Riverside Group, was elected as Vice-Chair, also unopposed.
New association Chairs included: