The fullest measure of success for Southdown Housing Association is when its clientele no longer need its services. Even so, there's plenty to keep this small organisation growing

In the steady numbers game of the housing world Southdown Housing Association is a small figure. But those statistical measurements can be somewhat deceptive. There's nothing small about the impact Southdown has on the lives of its client groups.

We say client groups because it works with people outside of the boundaries of its properties They are not only all tenants but also recipients of floating support.

Southdown is a specialised organisation, and always has been since its inception in 1972, when it bore the somewhat tongue-wearying moniker of 'Brighton & Hove Area Group Housing Association'. It was a voluntary organisation but, even as it has changed and modernised over the decades, it has maintained its ethos of supporting the needs of vulnerable people.

Broadly, Southdown's clients can be split into three groups. They are people with mental health problems, people with learning disabilities and people who are at risk of becoming - or are already - homeless.

Furthermore, the organisation is about to add another client group to its programme of support. Having won a two-year contract from the East Sussex Supporting People team Southdown will, in April, begin providing floating support to gypsies and travellers. The support will cover both individuals and their families, wherever they are in the Sussex area, be that on site or settled in a permanent home.

All told, Southdown is currently providing support and assistance to around 1,800 people. Of these only 540 are actual tenants of the organisation. They all benefit from tailor-made support packages, to ensure that they can build the confidence to live as independently as possible.

"At the heart of what we do is the person," said chief executive Aideen Jones. "We're very personcentred, so we look at the individual's needs. We don't try to fit square pegs into round holes, but are looking to see how we can help them to have a more sustainable life.

"We provide very focused support. Because we don't want to be paternalistic and take over, we provide the support with people not for people. We work from people's strengths, not their weaknesses. People don't just arrive on our doorstep with no past. In their past they will have had things that were great strengths, so it's about building on those strengths and helping people to gain confidence."

Partnerships are an important part of the process. The organisation maintains a relationship with over 30 RSLs and local authority housing departments, as well as a range of agencies such as the local NHS Trust.

Among its commissioned partnerships are three main social services contracts to provide supported living and registered care services to people with learning disabilities, with Brighton & Hove, East and West Sussex.

It also has 32 Supporting People contracts across Brighton & Hove, East and West Sussex. It has a contract with West Sussex County Council to operate supported employment services to help people with learning disabilities to find work. The association is just about to embark on a new service for the Sussex Partnership NHS Trust to provide jobs for people who have experienced mental health problems.

Like any organisation Southdown looks to grow. To this end, it has recently acquired 50 bed spaces across the county from Dimensions Housing Association, 12 flats from L&Q in Brighton & Hove and eight flats from Shaftesbury Housing Association in Eastbourne in addition to developing 15 new units of its own. The organisation has also made use of the National Affordable Housing Programme (NAHP) to help it deliver more for its service users.

In the last round, 2006-2008, Southdown gained the resources to purchase five shared
ownership flats under the corporation's HOLD scheme (Home Ownership for people with Long-term Disabilities). Southdown is looking to repeat this success with a further allocation from the NAHP 2008-2011 round, to acquire a further 45 units over three years.

"We're an expanding organisation," Jones added. "We're working across East and West Sussex and Brighton & Hove, but we will be moving out into Hampshire and Surrey in the next few years.

“We've bought 85 new units in the last year, so that's really helped in terms of expanding our accommodation base for people, and we ran the successful pilot for HOLD. We've just been awarded a much bigger grant from the Housing Corporation to develop that over the next three years. We've got lots of plans to expand our work, both in our supported living schemes, and our homelessness work."

Part of that expansion is the new gypsy and travellers contract mentioned earlier. "We developed an interest in gypsies and travellers through our more generic floating support services, when we were getting more of them referred. Our staff enjoyed working with the client group. They were able to provide some very directed support  that made a difference," Jones said.

A major component of Southdown's work with homelessness is the new Signpost service launched for the West Sussex area. This provides a range of support and advice, or acts - as the name indicates - as a signpost to an agency better able to provide appropriate support. The scheme is as much about preventing homelessness as it is about helping those who are homeless to regain a roof over their head.

"The homelessness scheme can deal with  anybody from a young person who's been in care, to a family, to people with mental health problems, people coming out of prison - a whole host of people, really," Jones added. "The idea is that we're either supporting people intensively or once they're re-housed we're supporting them in a minimum way, or we're signposting them to the right agency. So, it might be a case of referring a young person to the YMCA scheme, say. It'll be our job to make contact for them. "

People in need of its services can also self-refer, cutting out the bureaucratic rigmarole. She added: "The fact that people can self-refer when they're in trouble means so very often we're able to prevent homelessness, perhaps by working with another landlord, or helping people to reorganise their debts."

In the steady numbers game of the housing world Southdown Housing Association is a small figure. But those statistical measurements can be somewhat deceptive. There's nothing small about the impact Southdown has on the lives of its client groups.

We say client groups because it works with people outside of the boundaries of its properties They are not only all tenants but also recipients of floating support.

Southdown is a specialised organisation, and always has been since its inception in 1972, when it bore the somewhat tongue-wearying moniker of 'Brighton & Hove Area Group Housing Association'. It was a voluntary organisation but, even as it has changed and modernised over the decades, it has maintained its ethos of supporting the needs of vulnerable people.

Broadly, Southdown's clients can be split into three groups. They are people with mental health problems, people with learning disabilities and people who are at risk of becoming - or are already - homeless.

Furthermore, the organisation is about to add another client group to its programme of support. Having won a two-year contract from the East Sussex Supporting People team Southdown will, in April, begin providing floating support to gypsies and travellers. The support will cover both individuals and their families, wherever they are in the Sussex area, be that on site or settled in a permanent home.

All told, Southdown is currently providing support and assistance to around 1,800 people. Of these only 540 are actual tenants of the organisation. They all benefit from tailor-made support packages, to ensure that they can build the confidence to live as independently as possible.

"At the heart of what we do is the person," said chief executive Aideen Jones. "We're very personcentred, so we look at the individual's needs. We don't try to fit square pegs into round holes, but are looking to see how we can help them to have a more sustainable life.

"We provide very focused support. Because we don't want to be paternalistic and take over, we provide the support with people not for people. We work from people's strengths, not their weaknesses. People don't just arrive on our doorstep with no past. In their past they will have had things that were great strengths, so it's about building on those strengths and helping people to gain confidence."

Partnerships are an important part of the process. The organisation maintains a relationship with over 30 RSLs and local authority housing departments, as well as a range of agencies such as the local NHS Trust.

Among its commissioned partnerships are three main social services contracts to provide supported living and registered care services to people with learning disabilities, with Brighton & Hove, East and West Sussex.

It also has 32 Supporting People contracts across Brighton & Hove, East and West Sussex. It has a contract with West Sussex County Council to operate supported employment services to help people with learning disabilities to find work. The association is just about to embark on a new service for the Sussex Partnership NHS Trust to provide jobs for people who have experienced mental health problems.

Like any organisation Southdown looks to grow. To this end, it has recently acquired 50 bed spaces across the county from Dimensions Housing Association, 12 flats from L&Q in Brighton & Hove and eight flats from Shaftesbury Housing Association in Eastbourne in addition to developing 15 new units of its own. The organisation has also made use of the National Affordable Housing Programme (NAHP) to help it deliver more for its service users.

In the last round, 2006-2008, Southdown gained the resources to purchase five shared
ownership flats under the corporation's HOLD scheme (Home Ownership for people with Long-term Disabilities). Southdown is looking to repeat this success with a further allocation from the NAHP 2008-2011 round, to acquire a further 45 units over three years.

"We're an expanding organisation," Jones added. "We're working across East and West Sussex and Brighton & Hove, but we will be moving out into Hampshire and Surrey in the next few years.

“We've bought 85 new units in the last year, so that's really helped in terms of expanding our accommodation base for people, and we ran the successful pilot for HOLD. We've just been awarded a much bigger grant from the Housing Corporation to develop that over the next three years. We've got lots of plans to expand our work, both in our supported living schemes, and our homelessness work."

Part of that expansion is the new gypsy and travellers contract mentioned earlier. "We developed an interest in gypsies and travellers through our more generic floating support services, when we were getting more of them referred. Our staff enjoyed working with the client group. They were able to provide some very directed support that made a difference," Jones said.

A major component of Southdown's work with homelessness is the new Signpost service launched for the West Sussex area. This provides a range of support and advice, or acts - as the name indicates - as a signpost to an agency better able to provide appropriate support. The scheme is as much about preventing homelessness as it is about helping those who are homeless to regain a roof over their head.

"The homelessness scheme can deal with  anybody from a young person who's been in care, to a family, to people with mental health problems, people coming out of prison - a whole host of people, really," Jones added. "The idea is that we're either supporting people intensively or once they're re-housed we're supporting them in a minimum way, or we're signposting them to the right agency. So, it might be a case of referring a young person to the YMCA scheme, say. It'll be our job to make contact for them. "

People in need of its services can also self-refer, cutting out the bureaucratic rigmarole. She added: "The fact that people can self-refer when they're in trouble means so very often we're able to prevent homelessness, perhaps by working with another landlord, or helping people to reorganise their debts."

The ultimate measure - and aim - of Southdown's success is when people no longer need its services. "We help people become more self-confident through all the activities that we do," Jones added. "Then it becomes a sort of 'virtuous circle' - as people gain more self-confidence then they might go into education or go on to get a job until eventually they don't need us any more. So we do see a difference in people’s lives - with them becoming more independent."

The ultimate measure - and aim - of Southdown's success is when people no longer need its services. "We help people become more self-confident through all the activities that we do," Jones added. "Then it becomes a sort of 'virtuous circle' - as people gain more self-confidence then they might go into education or go on to get a job until eventually they don't need us any more. So we do see a difference in people’s lives - with them becoming more independent."