• December 2008 – Christmas appeal

As in previous years we distributed presents to our clients.  This year we distributed 300 individually wrapped presents.

• November 2008 – UK Housing Awards

Yes – we have been nominated and shortlisted for yet another award – for the category ‘Creating Integrated Communities’.  Unfortunately we did not win this award. 

• July 2008 – Summer event

We made a decision to hold a fun event for our clients in the summer school holidays rather than during refugee week as we have traditionally done.  With the help of Tamela Davidson from Leisure Services we hosted another very successful event for our clients.  This took place at the Lightfoot Sports Centre and over 200 people attended.  Activities included dance mats, badminton, football, rollerblading, salsa lessons and massage therapies.  If you have any suggestions for what we should do next year please let us know.

• June 2008 – Refugee Week

This year we decided to change our focus and raise issues of destitution.  We collected food on behalf of two voluntary projects who distributed the food to clients suffering destitution.  Click here to find out more about Refugee Week 2008 and how YHN got involved.

• June 2008 -  Confirmation of Charter Mark Award

The service underwent its annual review and we passed with flying colours.

• March 2008 – Section 4 transfers

We had, since July 2007, procured a service from a property contractor to provide support and deal with accommodation issues relating to clients receiving Section 4 support.  Over a period of time we recognised that the delivery of the service was not what we wanted, so we made a decision to cancel the service and bring it in-house.  We did this in March which involved allocating specific staff to manage this work.  Clients have told us that they are happier with the service particularly with our success at raising property standards.

• February 2008 – Planning day

We held a full team review day to discuss how best to organise our patch based working in light of the additional workload described above.   This resulted in changing our patch working arrangements.

• Dec 2007 – March 2008 – Case Resolution Programme

The workload increased dramatically during this period due to the Government’s Case Resolution Programme (‘Legacy’ cases) and our decision to take all support for Section 4 cases in house.  The review of legacy cases meant large numbers of families receiving leave to remain.  We worked constructively with the City Council to ensure that homelessness was avoided both for clients living in council properties and for those being supported by private sector property providers.  Out of a total of 180 families affected by this process, none of them were made homeless or threatened with homelessness.