I joined the team at Caledonia Housing Association in November 2022 and am based in the Cordale Office.  It has been a brilliant year so far as Neighbourhood Officer in the Renton area, meeting the tenants and working with the staff in our office.  I have worked in social housing for nearly 7 years in various roles, allowing me to get a better understanding of the sector and the need for social housing and the variety of support organisations can bring to its communities.

As a Neighbourhood Officer, I see first hand the challenges that individuals are facing, my aim is always to support my tenants the best I can with maintaining their tenancy and signpost where appropriate to help with other matters.  Within the role there is great satisfaction when you see an impact or difference has been made.

I have been working for Caledonia since 2017 and started in the role of a home help as I loved the idea of making a difference to older people’s lives.  I settled in very well with my colleague’s and gained my own customers and formed some lovely professional relationships with my them.  In this role I had external customers, with no Caledonia tenants, however during Covid restrictions my role changed and I was based in a retirement scheme.  This was a real learning opportunity for me and I learnt lots about how Caledonia housing works and how all the teams work together. I learnt the importance of building trust with our tenants, as well as keeping the scheme looking good and safe in those worrying times.  This change made me decide that I liked scheme life and I enquired about some training to further my education in housing. I was lucky enough to be accepted for the Chartered Housing Institute and gain my Level 2 in Housing Practice. I was supported to complete the course by my manager and mentors who gave me guidance and reassurance. Fortunately, it all paid off and I now manage two schemes for Caledonia and I love my job; there is never a dull moment and every day is still a school day. I think in housing there will always be learning and lots of opportunity’s, without Caledonia giving me the opportunity to gain further qualifications I wouldn’t be where I am today.

I joined Caledonia in April 2016 as Business Services Assistant.  My duties included providing administration support to the Health & Safety Officer, Marketing & Communications Officer, staffing reception and being responsible for incoming and outgoing mail.  As I grew into my role, I became involved with reporting on the Organisation’s complaints performance as well as providing training sessions to staff on how to log complaints on QL. I also represented Caledonia at the Complaint Handlers Network for Registered Social Landlords.  When a secondment opportunity arose for the post of Business Services Officer, I was able to demonstrate the knowledge, skills and experience I had gained as Business Services Assistant and was successful in applying for the role.  Once the secondment ended, I provided assistance on several health and safety tasks. To support my development Caledonia funded me to achieve qualifications, such as IOSH Managing Safely, Level 2 in COSHH Risk Assessments, Emergency First Aid at Work and Elementary Food Hygiene.  In July 2020, I was successful in achieving the secondment Health & Safety Officer which was made permanent in April 2021. After being in the role for two years, Caledonia demonstrated further investment and belief in me by funding my NEBOSH qualification. This qualification has now boosted my confidence and increased my knowledge and understanding of health & safety in the housing sector.  Even though I come from a family of Civil Engineers and Structural Engineers, a career in Health & Safety never crossed my mind.  However, thanks to the investment, internal opportunities, encouragement and support from Caledonia and my Managers, I definitely feel that this is the right path for me.

I’ve worked in social housing for over 25 years, in various housing management roles and in housing and support services, joining Servite in 2007 as Housing Manager which merged to become Caledonia Housing Association in 2011.  From 2014 I was Head of Support Services where I lead on modernising and remodelling our services to Older People due to changes in funding.  Since 2019 I’ve been the Strategy and Improvement Manager which is a new role created as part of Caledonia’s business transformation programme ‘Customer First’.  The key aim of the role is to support business improvement activity across the organisation and to develop our digital offer to tenants, primarily through Caledonia’s customer self-service app Connect and to enhance staff mobile working.  My team also provides data insights on performance and services that supports data driven decision making.  I recently completed a Project Management Course at Stirling University as Caledonia is always keen to support our learning and development, no matter what stage you are at in your career.  I’m passionate about being able to deliver business and service improvements to colleagues and customers that fit our strategic aim of providing ‘Homes and Services that make life better’