HLINks - Housing LIN’s weekly update at your fingertips!
Welcome to our must-read weekly bulletin, HLINks, week-ending Friday, 16 July 2021.
This week we published a guest blog by Carla Fulgoni, Planning Policy and Appeals Manager at Planning Bureau Ltd. & Chair of the Dorset Young Planners’ Committee, looking at the experience of Young Planners in planning and responding to the demands of working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In other new, we highlight a range of items that we think will be of interest to you, including:
- A new report published by Centre for Ageing Better on The missing market: How home retailers can better meet the needs of over 50s consumers.
- New home adaptations training courses from DLF
- The NCF welcomes new ground-breaking research on the social care workforce crisis
- And, the NIHR School for Social Care research funds a project on how Extra Care Housing can help people to live well with dementia.
Register here to keep up-to-date with the latest on housing and care matters, sent direct to your inbox. You can also follow us on Twitter at @HousingLIN, @HousingLINews and @HLINConsult.
And please do get in contact if you would like to discuss matters highlighted in this week’s issues, share learning about your work or find out more on how you can engage our highly regarded consultancy services to support you.
Stay connected and, above all, with further lockdown arrangements delayed for the time being, remain safe.
New Housing LIN blog
Planning and responding to the demands of working form home
Written by Carla Fulgoni, Planning Policy and Appeals Manager at Planning Bureau Ltd. & Chair of the Dorset Young Planners’ Committee, this new Housing LIN guest blog looks at the experience of Young Planners in planning and responding to the demands of working from during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Carla reflects on how Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) Young Planners adapted to their new homeworking surroundings and explores some of the unexpected positive consequences and opportunities that accompanied this new way of working, both professionally and personally.
Coronavirus Update
With the easing of Covid-19 restriction rules that came into force last month and further relaxations expected from 19 July, check out current and relevant sector guidance on the pandemic on our Coronavirus Info Hub along with a range of Housing LIN practice briefings for the sector and links to other useful information and websites.
If you missed the launch of the St Monica Trust/Housing LIN RE-COV Study, the ‘state of the nation’ report on COVID-19 and its impact on the retirement village and extra care housing sector, you can now download the presenters’ powerpoints and watch a recording of the HAPPI Hour session.
What else caught our interest?
Housing, Community, Disability, and Ageing
The missing market: How home retailers can better meet the needs of over 50s consumers
Research suggests that high street retailers are currently overlooking the needs of over-50s in their range of homewares, appliances and fittings, despite estimates that by mid-2030, half of all UK adults will be over 50 years old. They are therefore missing out of a large and growing market for easy to use products that are also aesthetically pleasing.
This report, published by Centre for Ageing Better, explores the gaps and opportunities related to meeting over-50s consumers’ needs for inclusive products. While aimed at retailers, it also provides recommendations for manufacturers and designers, as well as those responsible for developing and managing homes, such as social housing providers and landlords.
New home adaptations training courses from the DLF
A range of new courses dealing with housing adaptations has been introduced by the DLF, the charity that specialises in impartial information, advice and training about assistive technology.
The charity is also offering free trials of its new prescribing tool DLF ProAssist developed jointly with TSA to encourage confident selection of sometimes unfamiliar technology solutions.
What else caught our interest?
- Joan’s Voice - the need for good and decent homes | Centre for Ageing Better
- Anaemia and physical and mental health in the very old: An individual participant data meta-analysis of four longitudinal studies of ageing | Age and Ageing | Oxford Academic
- Property supply to the lower end of the English private rented sector - Centre for Housing Policy, University of York
- Age Friendly Ireland: Healthy Age Friendly Homes Programme
- New report examines short and long-term implications of COVID-19 on poverty and inequality
Design, Construction, Planning and Technology
What else caught our interest?
Health and Social Care, Mental Health and Learning Disability
The care workforce is at breaking point
The National Care Forum (NCF) – the leading association for not for profit care providers - welcomes the research by member Community Intergrated Care providing an absolutely essential independent perspective on the complex, skilled and demanding roles within social care.
Unfair to Care is a ground-breaking report on the social care workforce crisis that provides in-depth evidence that frontline carers receive an unjust deal in comparison to other public funded industries and breaks the stereotype that social care is a ‘low-skilled’ sector.
What caught our interest?
- House of Commons - Health and Social Care Committee: Treatment of autistic people and individuals with learning disabilities
- NHS England and NHS Improvement blog: Episode 29 - Closer alignment between housing and health that benefits everyone
- BGS urges new Health Secretary to consider complex health needs of older people | British Geriatrics Society
- ILC-UK Blog: Social care reform: it’s more than just money
Housing and Dementia
New NIHR School for Social Care research funded project on how Extra Care Housing can help people to live well with dementia
The Housing LIN is delighted to have partnered with the University of Worcester on the Supporting People Living with Dementia in Extra Care Housing (DemECH) project funded by the NIHR School for Social Care Research that uses a mixed methods approach to explore how Extra Care Housing can help people to live well with dementia.
The study findings will be shared in a Key Insight Booklet and video diaries sharing the experience of people living with dementia and their experience of extra care housing to guide future developments.
APPG on Housing and Care for Older People Inquiry Report
Did you miss this recent APPG Inquiry report?
Watch and listen again to the launch of the new report on housing and dementia here and be inspired by Wendy Mitchell as she shares her personal story about living with dementia.
And did you miss our HAPPI Hour sessions on housing and dementia last month? The recording and presentations are now available.
What else caught our interest?
Wales
For Welsh government guidance on COVID-19, visit: https://gov.wales/coronavirus
Scotland
For Scottish government guidance on COVID-19, go to https://www.gov.scot/collections/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance/
What else caught our interest:
EVENTS
Sign up to our July HAPPI Hour sessions
Have we got an exciting programme of HAPPI Hour live-streams to quench you thirst this month, before we take a break in August. Please note the change of the day of our sessions from Thursday to Tuesday!
On the 20th July we host a HAPPI Hour on Compassionate Neighbourhoods: communities that care with St Joseph’s Hospice’s Patrick Dollard, Ann Brolan from Anchor Hanover and IBI architect’s Maarit Heneinon-Smith.
Lastly, on the 27th July we welcome Levitt Bernstein’s Irene Craik, Phoenix Community Housing’s Steve Connor and UKRI’s Julie Glenn to our HAPPI Hour - Fostering innovation in designing for Ageing
You may be interested in these other events supported by the Housing LIN
In next week’s HLINks
Next week we publish a guest blog by Penny Grosett, Senior Community Engagement Manager at Sparko, on digitally connecting the digitally excluded.
The Housing LIN would like to thank Willmott Dixon for their support in producing this newsletter.