EAC has received a grant from the Housing Corporation for new research on Extra Care Housing to be carried out in partnership with the Centre for Urban & Regional Studies (CURS), the Institute of Public Care and Peter Fletcher Associates. Although the grant funded work covers England only, EAC plans to extend it to cover Scotland and Wales also.
The project, supported by the Department of Health's Care Services Improvement PArtnership (CSIP), aims to create a common platform of researched information about Extra Care sheltered housing for older people, commissioners and providers, so as to ground all stakeholders in a common understanding of what ECH can offer.
The project aims to deliver a series of specific and inter-linked outputs:
Making accessible a wide body of existing work, much of it commissioned by the CSIP Housing LIN and/or funded by HC IGP grant:
- A comprehensive, practical and accessible online knowledge resource for commissioners and providers, providing detailed information on all aspects of commissioning, funding, designing, building and managing ECH
Drawing on and consolidating existing material, combined with new research designed to test the claims made for ECH and provide an evidence base for what appears to work well and what does not:
- A steps to success guide, communicating an understanding of what has worked in schemes so far, for providers/commissioners and for residents
- An ECH appraisal tool to assess success against objectives in current and future schemes
Focusing strongly on dissemination to all stakeholders, including older people themselves and their families
- An industry-owned, independently-managed, kitemarking system to tie providers into agreed minimum standards and ongoing use of the appraisal tool and pooling of results
- A series of targeted communication tools, including website modules, audiovisual productions and media presentations to introduce older people & their families, social care professionals and future care staff to ECH, the kitemarking and the ongoing learning process planned
- A short, punchy printed publication to introduce all stakeholders to the above – eg. “Making housing with care work – a challenge and an opportunity for all of us”
- Further promotion & dissemination – to be devised with stakeholders during the course of the project.
Extra Care Housing Survey
The first step for the project has been the dispatch to some 350 housing providers of a total of 750 questionnaires, asking for updates on details of schemes held on EAC's National Database of Housing for Older People. Please We look forward to receiving help from all these providers to ensure that we can make the best information available through our HousingCare.org website, and the new 'Housing with Care' we are building. If you can help, please email Alex Billeter at EAC: alex.billeter@eac.org.uk.