In July 2020, Niki Trueman, our scrutiny team vice chair, completed a Level 2 qualification in Understanding Tenant Scrutiny with TPAS England. We caught up with Niki to find out more about her training and how it's helped her in her role as a scrutiny team member, here's what she had to say:
“Back in July, I proudly completed and passed my Level 2 in Understanding Tenant Scrutiny course with TPAS England.
As a new member of the scrutiny team, I knew how important it would be to get up to speed as quickly as possible so that I could start helping to plan the next Scrutiny review. Selwood Housing helped to find the course most relevant for me and paid for the cost of the course out of their annual tenant training budget.
The course was run online over three weeks. It had a mix of interactive videos, chat boxes with tutors and work I could do in my own time. I liked how I could dip in and out to fit around my home life.
I learnt so much on the course; why tenant scrutiny is important and how to monitor its effectiveness, how tenant lead scrutiny can be set up and how tenants can decide priorities for reviewing services from their landlord.
This has given me skills that I can use not only to fulfil my role as a scrutiny member but I was also able to share with the rest of the team so we all benefited in a round about way!
If anyone is reading this and wondering if they should go on a training course run by or endorsed by Selwood Housing, I would say ‘give it a go!'. Tenant training is free. You will learn skills to become better involved and help to effectively work together to improve services for Selwood (Housing) customers. On this course I got a recognised certification which will also help with future employability and my own continued learning.
I had fantastic support from the involvement team at Selwood Housing to access the training, they supported me from start to finish and were always at hand if I needed them. So a big thank you to the Involvement Team and Selwood Housing for all your help!”
If you're interested in undertaking training with TPAS England, head to the TPAS website for a list of public training opportunities. Alternatively, for information about other training opportunities in your local area or online, check out our list of training opportunities.
