Knowsley Housing Trust holds a Social Responsibility Week

Housing association staff have been finding out more about the different ways of giving back to communities after Knowsley Housing Trust (KHT) held a Social Responsibility Week that helped spread the message about the importance of giving something back and how KHT goes about doing this.

KHT operational director of investment, Steve Heverin, said: “Social Responsibility is about realising that businesses have a responsibility to the societies that they serve.

“KHT is not just about providing homes. We are committed to improving lives and communities and there are many ways we can do this, from helping people maximise their household income with budget and benefit advice, to providing training or volunteering opportunities.”

Each day throughout the week was themed around a different strand of KHT’s SR strategy, which includes People, Partnerships, Communities and Environment.

Events took place at KHT’s head office and at local offices and One Stop Shops in its neighbourhoods.

Staff were able to vote for KHT’s charity of the year, find out about its Advantage reward scheme and offer ideas and join the social committee.

They were invited to volunteer and donate to services such as Knowsley Foodbank which KHT supports, were given information on how to save energy and could pick up free money saving aids such as Tyre gauges, Water hippo water saving devices and a TV power down device.

They were also offered the chance to receive a new discount card for local shops across the borough, which will be launched in December by KHT in partnership with KMBC and Knowsley Mutual credit union.

Staff also made ‘Pledges’ to show how they will contribute to SR - KHT aims to get all 450 staff members to make a Pledge. Sheltered Scheme Manager Louise Croft has pledged to, ‘always make people count, by looking for opportunities to fundraise’.

Heverin added: “SR is something we strongly believe in at KHT and we wanted to make our staff more aware of the support and opportunities KHT provides through the work we do in this area and how they can get involved.”