We were delighted to hear that this video, created a few months ago, is going to be shown at this week’s National Housing Summit in Birmingham.
Focused on how we’ve put partnership work at the heart of creating thriving communities, the video talks about how our demerger back in 2017 enabled us to take a truly local focus, supporting the building of local partnerships which were critical in our COVID response.
These partnerships have now developed, with formalised agreements and joint goals in many areas, and we have created a number of new initiatives with partners to maximise the impact we’re making in our communities.
‘Our Croxteth’ has seen us working together with Mersey Care NHS, Merseyside Police, local GP surgeries and health networks and Liverpool City Council to strengthen community resilience, with us pooling funding together to support local organisations tackle key issues identified by people in the community.
The success of this initiative was cited by Liverpool City Council as being a key factor in us being the only housing association in the UK chosen to co-lead the delivery of a £350K ‘Partnerships for People and Place’ funded initiative, part of the levelling up fund.
‘Health and housing’ has been a key focus for Cobalt, with our work highlighting how varied and important the role of housing and housing associations are in people’s health and wellbeing. We recently welcomed the first Cohort of student nurses from Liverpool John Moores University on a work placement to help them understand more about the role that housing plays in often complex lives, seeing first hand how we work with community partners to support tenants.
The great work shown in the video is something our new Chief Executive, Claire Griffiths, is keen to build on:
“Cobalt Housing is a community anchor organisation and it’s really clear that the partnership working taking place is benefitting residents by maximising the effectiveness of service delivery. It’s great to see health and housing on the agenda at the National Housing Summit, and we’re doing all we can to get people talking about the pivotal role housing and housing associations play in people’s health, wellbeing, the community and the economy. We know this role is going to be more important than ever as the cost of living crisis deepens, and are working closely with partners to establish the best support network possible to ensure no one is left behind.”
