Engagement newsletter - Spring 2023

You can help improve YHN's services

As a customer, you have first-hand experience of our services. You know what is going well and what could be better at YHN. We'd like to invite you to join one of our customer groups and share your knowledge and experience:

Customer Complaints Panel:

• Focused on using feedback and suggestions from customers to improve the way we handle complaints
• Reviewing closed complaints to understand the customer's point of view
• Helping to shape future services

Building Safety Group:

• Focused on maintaining high safety standards in high rise buildings
• Giving customers a platform to suggest improvements or raise concerns
• Understanding the fire and structural safety of high-rise buildings

      (Please note, this group is for customers who live in a high-rise building). 

What does getting involved mean for you?

There's lots of reasons that you might get involved with YHN. Here’s just some of the benefits:

• Develop new skills and improve self-confidence
• Out of pocket expenses and support to get online
• Learning opportunities
• Making a difference
• Meet new people 

Ready to join a customer group? Contact the team:

Email - getinvolved@yhn.org.uk   

Text - 07971 049266 

Call - 0191 211 5400  



For more information about getting involved with the tenant scrutiny panel - Scrutiny Involvement For Tenants (SIFT) or Newcastle City Council's Newcastle Independent Tenant Voice (NITV) please visit our website.

Customer Annual Report

What matters to you?

We want to keep you informed about things that matter to you. We publish a Customer Annual Report every autumn to give you information about what we have been up to over the last year. We currently include details on our performance in several important areas, but we wanted to know what customers would like to read about. 

We wrote to our Engaged Customers group and asked them to take part in a survey on what they would like to be informed of in the report. We were overwhelmed by the response and would like to thank everyone who gave their feedback. This information is currently being used to help design the report which you will receive later this year.



If you'd like to see how the report has been done in the past, you can view last year's here.

Our Biggest Clean Up Yet

As we continue our mission to make positive contributions to neighbourhoods across the city, we had our biggest clean up yet!



The Customer Insight & Engagement team joined forces with staff from Safe Living, the Contact Centre, Support & Progression and Housing Services to remove our biggest haul to date. 



In an effort to keep the streets of Newcastle clean, a record 38 bags of litter were removed from the streets of Pottery Bank.  

So far, we have taken 228 bags of rubbish out of the local area as well as tackling fly tipping. 



Piled on top of each other, the bin bags would reach the height of Vallum Court, Todds Nook and Westgate Court stacked up. That’s the equivalent of 60 floors!

Survey Results - 'Your home, your voice'

We recently asked you all to take part in a survey called ‘Your home, your voice,’ and we received 5020 responses. This was a brilliant response! We'd like to thank everyone for taking part. We have been sharing your views and feedback with different teams across YHN to help improve services for all customers.



Here's some of the things we found out:



64.9% of customers are satisfied with YHN overall

5% of respondents have served in the armed forces

49% of customers were satisfied that YHN listens to their views and acts upon them

21% of survey respondents are unpaid carers



To read more about the survey, and how we've already started to make changes from your feedback, please click here.

Customer Voice Group Interview with YHN's Managing Director, Tina Drury

The Customer Voice Group ensures that customers’ voices are heard by YHN leadership team and the YHN Board. The group directly influences the way YHN delivers services. They recently interviewed our Managing Director, Tina Drury, and put some of our customers' most pressing questions to her - you can read her responses here.

Four Million Homes

This is a government initiative to provide a place for social housing residents to seek guidance and training about their rights as a tenant and how to stand up for them. If you’re interested in finding out more, take a look at their website.

 

The training they provide is currently held in London, Birmingham, Liverpool, and Leeds, but they are planning to host sessions in Newcastle in 2024.

 

There are still ways to be involved for now. Why not watch one of their recorded webinars on Damp and Mould or Anti-Social Behaviour? They will host a new webinar every month and you can sign up for them here when they are available.

Four Million Homes are also keen to recruit to their Resident Sounding Board. Members of the Sounding Board will each be sent up to 3 short online questionnaires by email each calendar quarter. The questionnaires will contain simple questions and will take 5–10 minutes to complete. 

Thank you for reading.

If you would like to be sent this newsletter directly to your email address, please email getinvolved@yhn.org.uk