TEC in Housing Charter
Housing organisations across Scotland are being invited to learn more about Technology Enabled Care in Housing through a new Charter. Zhan McIntyre explains how you might be able to get the most from the Charter.
Are you developing a digital strategy or redesigning your services to meet the needs of your tenants? Then you need to take a look at the TEC in Housing Charter.
The TEC in Housing Charter was developed as part of the Technology Enabled Care (TEC) Ready Programme funded by the Scottish Government’s TEC Programme and hosted by the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA).
Since 2016, the TEC Ready team, led by Heather Laing, has been working with housing organisations and individuals to support the housing sector’s use of innovative TEC.
Building on this work, the charter has been developed to support the use of TEC in creating and delivering housing solutions. Organisations are invited to sign up to pledges included in the charter, but if you aren’t quite ready yet, don’t worry! Many people have mentioned they will use the pledges to help them think about developing their own strategy, and gives a good framework for what activities they need to focus on.
One of the pledges is to focus on engaging customers in the co-design of TEC services. With more people living longer, and often in poor health, the aim of this pledge is to maximise the benefits that TEC solutions can bring by taking account of their needs and putting them, their families or carers at the heart of the co-design, testing and review of customised services. This will help to enable people to live in their homes safely and independently for as long as possible.
Another pledge commits to collaborative working in order to share ideas and work within individual organisations as well as with the wider housing sector, allied professions, universities and other research institutions.
There is also a pledge that housing associations will work in partnership with customers and others, including health and social care colleagues, to investigate the use of preventative analytics to allow greater opportunity for intervention at an earlier stage, potentially reducing the risk of falls and frailty.
For information and inspiration visit the TEC Housing website.