Resident Support Resources

Introduction

Creating support plans is just the first step in providing residents with the care, support or supervision they need.

To serve residents well it is vital to be aware of the tools and resources available to turn action plans into lasting, sustainable change.

Here are some of the models, resources and tools that partners are finding helpful to give to their resident support teams to help them support their residents really well.

The support the resident receives is what really determines the success of the ministry you are engaging in. We have put this document together to help give you an idea of what support might look like and to give you some guidelines on some of the challenges you will face.  As always, prayer is foundational to all of this work.

1. Training For Your Resident Support Team

Resident Support Team Members

The members of your resident support team will bring a variety of gifts and skills into the mix of care, support or supervision you provide for your residents.

It is entirely up to you how you deploy these skills and which models you adopt. Most partners end up with a blended approach.

Principles for Resident Support Team

Please make sure your project manager covers these areas items in your training  

Confidentiality

This includes thinking through with whom personal information from the resident is shared.

Where you keep the support paperwork and who has access?

For example – Microsoft OneDrive provides a good platform for securely sharing documents

Boundaries

What are the boundaries of support?

What happens when residents come to church?

How can natural Christian hospitality be appropriate to residents

Safe Lone Working (including Safeguarding)

What safe practice communications will you set up between the team?

How will you ensure your Lone Working Policy is adhered to?

See Green Pastures Lone Working Guidance

Monitoring your Team

What aspects of the resident support will you delegate?

How will you supervise the team, give them adequate support and quality check their work?

How will you avoid being reliant on just one member of the team?

What is a good balance between ‘professionalism’ and Christian care?

Storing Support Plans & Contact Logs online  

We recommend that you use Microsoft OneDrive drive for your support paperwork for each resident. Support paperwork is Support Plan (Needs & Goals) & Contact logs. You can also make a download to send to GP to audit. We use Microsoft OneDrive at Green Pastures and so it’s the easiest system to integrate with us. That said, we are happy to work with you on the system of your choice and there are other cloud-based storage solutions out there such as Google Drive or Dropbox.

Buddying with another Partner

If you would like GP to connect you with a like minded or geographically close partner please contact your PM for him or her to arrange.  

Communication Within the Resident Support Team

It is critical that you have good communication between these team members.  

Please make sure your Contact Logs on your online system are updated at least weekly by the resident support workers. Maybe task your administrator to check these every fortnight.  

Please revisit you team structure if necessary  (there is an example in section 3 of PM login)

Guidelines for Visits

Green Pastures Partner’s would not be able to function without the work of their volunteer workers. Here are some important guidelines that you could consider when making your own volunteer policy.  

Stay Safe & Accountable

• Notify the office where you are going on a visit – giving an idea of timescale
• Take a mobile phone with you  
• Report back using a visiting sheet  
• Debrief
• Follow your lone working guidelines
• Take a mobile phone
• Record your visit
• Be aware of and follow confidentiality guidelines

Spiritual Help

• Prioritise your visit list  
• Pray before you make a visit
• Remember to have a Bible with you
• Be aware of the environment
• Remain sensitive at all times to the person/people you are visiting
• Be prepared to pray with the person/people you are visiting
• Do not force your views on others
• Keep in mind that you are salt and light and keep in mind that you may be entering a spiritual battlefield

Practical Guidelines

• Prioritise your visit list  
• Be on time for your appointments
• Have a purpose for your visit
• Check you breath doesn’t smell before you visit
• It may be that information is revealed whereby you may wish to take particular action – check your intended acts out with you supervisor
• Become responsible for action required
• Do not make promises you cannot keep
• Do not give out money

If Cleaning or Doing Maintenance

• Follow ‘stay safe & accountable’ above
• Make sure you are in receipt of specific instructions
• Follow lone working guidelines if working alone
• Wear protective clothing where necessary
• Never pick up hypodermic syringes or toxic materials
• Do not tackle a job you feel uncomfortable about doing

House Meetings/ Resident Forums

Particularly for people living in houses under multiple occupancy (HMOs), it is essential that a regular space is created where inevitable grievances can be aired and conflicts (both resident-to-resident and resident to partner) can be resolved.

The tone and frequency of resident meetings will vary massively according to your residents’ needs and temperaments and the set up of the house. For HMOs we advise you to chair a house meeting at least every other month, though it may have to be much more frequent than this. For a building with multiple self-contained flats it is usually less essential, but may still be necessary depending on the layout of the building and the residents’ support needs.

We have found that particularly in the first six months of a partnership, that resident meetings are very important for ironing things out in relation to the building and the project’s operation.  

When a project is just off the ground there are all sorts of chinks in the operation that may negatively affect your residents but you may well not be aware of until frustrations bubble over. Meeting regularly with residents helps smooth and accelerate the learning process of setting up a new project and can prevent unnecessary conflict with residents.

Alongside conflict resolution, these meetings have been very helpful for getting “warts-and-all” feedback on the quality of contractors who you may want to (or not want to) use again.  

What to Cover

Here is a sample agenda for a residents’ meeting:

• Re-introductions
• Updates on maintenance issues
• Fire/health and safety flag ups
• Cleaning of communal parts
• Garden maintenance
• Recycling and rubbish
• Date of next meeting

Conflict Management Training

It is a very good idea to train your volunteers in conflict management. There are a wide variety of professional courses that are available, though these can be costly. GP provides some sheets on this.

Support Paperwork Training

Specific Training on the three core documents of Resident Support:

• Referral Forms
• Support Plan: Needs and Goals
• Contact Logs

A Resident Focused Approach

All effective interventions begin and end with a resident focussed approach. This puts the resident at the heart of absolutely everything in your supported housing project, including of course, the resident support programme.  

Person Centered Key-working

Listening Skills

Active listening is the process by which an individual secures information from another individual or group.

It involves paying attention to the conversation, not interrupting, and taking the time to understand what the speaker is discussing. The “active” element involves taking steps to draw out details that might not otherwise be shared

10 Steps to Effective Listening

Mentoring

Successful mentoring relationships go through four phases: preparation, negotiating, enabling growth, and closure. These sequential phases build on each other and vary in length.

The Three C's of Mentorship

Role 1: Consultant. This is the most obvious role for a mentor to play. ...

Role 2: Counselor. Listen. ...

Role 3: Cheerleader. In addition to all of the constructive feedback and advice that a mentor can give

Mentors should also provide support and enthusiasm.

Christian Based Mentoring Training: Mentor Me

Key qualities of an effective mentor

What is Mentoring?

Coaching

Coaching is a process that aims to improve performance and focuses on the ‘here and now’ rather than on the distant past or future.

While there are many different models of coaching, the coach is NOT the expert as such (as in mentoring)’ but, instead, the coach is a facilitator of learning.

There is a huge difference between teaching someone and helping them to learn. In coaching, fundamentally, the coach is helping the individual to improve their own performance: in other words, helping them to learn.

Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximise their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them.

There are a huge number of coaching resources available.

12 Coaching Skills That Make You A Good Coach

Befriending

The term ‘befriender’ is ambiguous and it’s meaning depends on the context in which it is used. Most recently it has been appropriated by a national scheme to provide company for those, mainly elderly, folk isolated by Covid-19. Good Practice Guide

We do not recommend use of the term ‘befriender’ as it causes confusion and you may end up sending a lot of time managing the expectation of both your befrienders and your residents. This is why we recommend you use the term Resident Support Team Member.

Counselling

The term counselling refers to interventions delivered by qualified and accredited professionals. Residents are often referred to counselling, but there is not usually a qualified counsellor on the resident support team.  

This is not the same as pastoral counselling, which may be offered by your churches pastoral care team. Please think carefully about the person delivering pastoral counselling and always ask yourself if this is in the best interests of the resident. See our Factsheet on Discipleship and Christian Resources.

Here is a summary to help you understand the different approaches:.

Time Givers and Skill Givers

In addition to your core Resident Support Team Members  you will want to recruit some ‘time givers’ and some ‘skills givers’.

Time Givers invest in the residents by:

• A friendly chat and a listening ear over a cup of tea and sharing a meal together.
• Praying regularly for the resident – also offering to pray for the resident
• Accompanying to appointments
• Transportation to appointments or an event they just can’t otherwise get to
• Inviting residents to church & if it is a family inviting to take the children to Sunday School
• Helping the residents keep the house tidy by setting up a cleaning rota.
• Assisting into voluntary work via Pathways or similar.
• Assisting into employment via Pathways or similar.  
• Invitation to an Alpha or Explore Christianity course or something similar
• Fortnightly cleaning at the house by volunteers
• Delivering or taking away furniture
• House outings: a cinema or bowling trip or a day out to a park or local attraction.
• Introducing your residents to other people in the community
• Taking an interest in the resident’s progress

A variety of these and other examples add up to the resident being regularly loved. This means the resident is far more likely to settle well & see fruit in their lives. We all want to see really successful residents  

Skills Givers provide basic life skills training

• Cleaning and Washing  
• Budgeting
• How to do a weekly shop  
• Cooking
• Emptying Rubbish  
• Anger Management

Skills Givers also share their passion for a hobby

• Microwave Cookery
• Raised Flower Beds
• A vegetable garden
• Crafts
• Art work
• Music making
• Poetry writing
• Model Railway