Here are some updates from our customers and colleagues. We’ve shared stories, experiences and achievements from our people and teams, as well as how we’re building a more diverse and inclusive organisation.
Nicole’s home swap story
We understand that your housing priorities can change over time. Whether you want more or less space, to move to a new location, or a different kind of property, Homeswapper can help you to find a new social home that suits your needs.
Earlier this year, we shared a lovely story from Nicole, and how she used Homeswapper to move back into her childhood home!
Customer engagement
Our new Customer Committee includes SYHA customers, Board members and employees. The group meets regularly to listen to customer experiences and feedback, and identify opportunities to make improvements.
Our Customer Scrutiny Panel have had another busy year supporting us to review and improve our services. One of the topics they looked at was our website, and their insight has helped to improve accessibility (there’s now a translation widget in the top menu), create a new Money saving advice page, and more. If you’d like more detail about their findings and recommendations, we publish all their reports on our website. The panel’s work was even featured in a brilliant article in Inside Housing Management!
You can stay up to date on all our Customer Engagement opportunities on our website – or get in touch with us on connect@syha.co.uk to find out more.
Work and wellbeing
We continue to offer a range of support for brilliant people to find and thrive in employment.
Our Good Work for severe mental illness service continues to support people to find a job role or to stay in work. We work closely with community mental health teams to provide this support and provide a personalised, one-to-one service to support people to reach their employment goals. From June 2024 – June 2025 this service supported 821 people.
WorkWell was launched in October 2024 and is supporting people across South Yorkshire with health conditions to find, stay or return to work. We are providing the service in partnership with South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA).
Since October 2024, WorkWell has supported over…
0 people
0%
said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the WorkWell service
JobsPlus is a service being delivered in the community of East Maltby. This service provides an into work bonus of up to £400 for eligible people. We’re also working with Barnsley Council and other local organisations to provide a new Pathways to Work service in Barnsley. It was launched in June this year and provides personalised employment support for people with health conditions, caring responsibilities, and young people aged 16 to 24.
We’re proud to be part of a pioneering new IPS for Homelessness study to test the effectiveness of Individual Placement and Support (IPS) and break the cycle of homelessness, by supporting people aged 18+ to access support and find work. It is a national employment trial, funded by Centre for Homelessness Impact, testing a new employment support service and we’re delivering the support in Sheffield, Rotherham and Barnsley. The project started in January 2025 and so far has provided support to 62 people experiencing homelessness.
K’s story
Our customer K lost her previous tenancy under a no-fault section 21 eviction. The team at Cuthbert Bank supported K and her family to navigate a difficult and unsettling time, look after their health and wellbeing, and take the steps to secure a new home.
K looks after two children, and they attended two different schools because of their Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) needs. Getting them both to school on time was both costly and challenging, so we supported K to arrange for the children to attend the same school and ensure they had the SEND support they required.
When K moved into Cuthbert Bank, her mental health had deteriorated. Our keyworkers listened to K, and supported her to speak to other professionals such as the school, mental health workers, and her GP.
The team also provided financial advice and support, and advised K through the bidding process to find a permanent home. K has now moved on from Cuthbert Bank and the family are settled in their new home – a huge well done to K and the Cuthbert Bank team for achieving this together.
A welcoming and inclusive SYHA
Our Diversity and Belonging Steering Group support the organisation to make meaningful change and celebrate the diversity of our customers, communities and colleagues. Here’s some highlights from the group and other great initiatives from across SYHA:
- Supported a new cohort to join the Independent Panel Member (IPM) programme. IPMs are employees who have completed specific training about improving recruitment processes and mitigating bias, and they join interview panels and act as an independent representative. This helps us to build a diverse workforce that reflects the communities we work with.
- Developed a database of employees that speak, read and write different languages. This will help us to quickly access translation support for customers – and currently includes 15 different languages!
- Created a series of events for our customers, colleagues and partners. This has included a Pride celebration, an Eid lunch, and an event to launch our new values, all raising money for local charities including SAYiT and Sheffield Children’s Hospital Charity. We also completed a day of cycling to fundraise for Pancreatic Cancer UK.
- Hosted the amazing Maya Productions Ltd for a theatre performance of Dynamic Flights by Tair Rafiq. This unique production explores lived experience of mental health conditions through a story of kindness, friendship, and the outdoors. Dynamic Flights was created in collaboration with our customers living at Beaufort Project and Lister Project. Beaufort Project and Lister Project both offer a home for people living with mental health conditions, and provide support for them to recover, stay safe and healthy, and develop new skills.
- Invited colleagues and partners to donate new children’s bedding for Cuthbert Bank. Every child is given new, plain bedding when they move in, but (based on feedback from the children and Cuthbert Bank team) we wanted to offer bedding that is more child-friendly. We’ve had really positive responses about how the bedding has helped families to settle into their home – so much so that our teams have procured some lovely, colourful new bedding for children to be given as standard!
Additionally, at The Meadows, alongside their jam-packed schedule of activities (including a craft club and an inter-generational group), our keyworker Sarah led some events around diversity.
Everyone started by thinking about ‘What makes me, me?’ and celebrated the different personalities, experiences and strengths at The Meadows. Customers and team members also got together to discuss what diversity means, both to people as individuals and as a community. They explored different protected characteristics, talked about their own experiences of discrimination, and identified groups and terminology they’d like to learn more about.
