Hundreds gather for biggest housing event in Wales

CIH Cymru chair Paul Diggory welcomed housing professionals from across Wales to the event before a scene-setting session with CIH Cymru director Matt Dicks, CIH chief executive Terrie Alafat and Prof Roger Awan-Scully from Cardiff University.

The session explored the newly launched public perceptions survey completed as part of CIH Cymru’s Tyfu Tai Cymru project and explored the key challenges facing housing professionals across Wales.

After the finalists for the 2018 New Professional competition were introduced and voting opened, a series of workshops explored a range of housing challenges in more detail.

• Rebecca Mollart, chief executive of Erosh, looked in-depth at the challenge of tackling loneliness and isolation among older people and the work the organisation is doing to combat the problem.
• Meanwhile Ruth Davies from Charter Housing and Adrian Burke from First Choice Housing explored their organisations’ innovative solutions to tackle digital inclusion and more.
• Julia and Anthony Houlston Clark, from Wales Restorative Approaches Parnership discussed their unique approach to housing services and Paul Edwards from HouseMark talked about the value for money challenge facing housing organisations in Wales.
• After lunch Chris Moore, the chief executive of The Clink, talked about his organisation’s work to rehabilitate offenders by training them and employing them in fine dining restaurants. And Mark Thompson, head teacher of St Helen’s Primary School in Swansea, gave his lessons from the school’s transformation in culture an fortunes.
• The day closed with sessions on fire safety in high rise buildings from Mark Watt from South Wales Fire and Rescue Service and the challenge of administering Universal Credit from Graham Roberts and Gary Jenkins from DWP.
• Elsewhere there were vibrant Fringe sessions on everything from leadership to communications.

Matt Dicks  |  director CIH Cymru

TAI 2018 started brilliantly and the release of our new public perceptions work was an ideal discussion point to get this year’s event going – it really set the tone. We’re so pleased to see so many housing professionals from organisations across Wales come together. At CIH Cymru we recognise there is so much value in working together on a shared approach to solving the many housing challenges we face and events like this play a huge part in that.