Your Own Place

Norwich

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Are you our next Office Manager?

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Your Own Place is recruiting. We’re seeking a new part-time (30 hours a week) Office Manager. You’ll be joining a dynamic and passionate team and playing a vital role in supporting them in their impactful work.

Our office is based in Norwich, where we will expect to see you for around half the week. Otherwise, there’s plenty of hybrid and flexible working, all the cloud tools and devices to do this, and most importantly, the support and trust to see you thrive in your role.

More details are below — don’t forget to get your application in by midday on 19th January. Good luck!

Read more about our team
Apply for the role of Your Own Place Office Manager

New Year, new board

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When it comes to business, the right team is crucial. This is especially true for non-executive directors, who provide leadership and guidance to companies. Recently, Don Evans stepped down as chair, opening up the position for someone new. Hannah Harvey, already a member of the board, was chosen to fill the role due to her valuable contributions and experience. The company also welcomed Simon Pickering as a new non-executive director, bringing his 15 years of experience in the VCSE and Public sector to the table.

Simon brings with him an impressive diversity of experience, giving him a unique perspective on the challenges facing businesses today. He’ll be bringing fresh ideas and insights to the board. Additionally, Simon is known for his imaginative and creative approach, which can be a valuable asset when it comes to problem-solving and innovation.

Overall, the addition of Hannah as chair and Simon as a new non-executive director is a positive development for the company. Joining Emma Corlett and Warren Gannaway, the board’s combined experience, skills, and creativity make them well-positioned to help guide the company towards continued success.

Improve your money managing arsenal

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What are these money workshops?

We’re really proud to be taking our confidential and small group workshops to people in work in Greater Norwich.

From January, we’re delivering 2-hour workshops in Norwich, where Your Own Place’s facilitators will create a confidential and safe environment to discuss money concerns, experiences and tips.

There will be no more than 10 people in the workshop, and it will be a blend of discussion and colourful activities.

Why offer these workshops to people in employment?

According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, two thirds of people in poverty live in a household where at least one adult is in work (source below*). We know that the Cost of Living Crisis is making things a lot harder to manage – we also know that talking about it can make it easier. Talking about it can mean you feel less alone, but on top of that, we can learn from each other different strategies to manage.

We’ve surveyed employers first to find out the best times to deliver the workshops.

Why should people come along?

Because they love checking Money Saving Expert’s emails and finding new ways to save

Because they are feeling the pinch with increasing energy bills this winter

Because they would like a comfortable space to discuss money

Whatever the reason, participants will be welcomed and their voice valued. The workshop is a combination of sharing and hearing experiences with money, and participating in colourful activities that add different strategies to your money managing arsenal.

Coproduction and tenant engagement rolled into one

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After three co-production workshops in early 2023 with team members from Colchester Borough Homes, Colchester YMCA, Emmaus Colchester, Peabody Colchester, and YES Colchester, we’re entering our next phase of the project.

These workshops focussed on developing shared values with the organisations involved. Through these workshops, we explored strength- and asset-based approaches, open questions, incentives, and the different pathways people travel towards getting housed.

Our approach was solutions-focused and engaging, with an emphasis on building trust and fostering open, honest communication. We wanted to create a space where everyone felt welcome to share their thoughts and ideas. This was especially true on the third day, when each of the organisations brought one or two people they were working with. Hearing the overlap of experiences and — sometimes conflicting — suggestions in the room, meant that we could move towards our next phase.

We next met with Andrew Grimwade from Colchester Borough Homes, Zaneta Daniels-Ireton of Emmaus Colhester and Chelsea Collingridge from Sanctuary Supported Living, to collaborate on the steps of our listening phase — developing a greater understanding of how to involve people living at the community house at Emmaus Colchester, and at Chinook and Queen Elizabeth Way in Sanctuary Supported Living.

Colchester Borough Homes fed back how they appreciated our approachable and empathetic style, as well as our willingness to go the extra mile to ensure that their residents’ needs were heard and understood. We were able to identify areas where they could improve their service delivery, and we worked together to develop strategies to address these issues.

At the heart of our approach is a commitment to honesty, openness, and inclusivity. We believe that everyone deserves to have a say in the decisions that affect their lives, and we’re dedicated to empowering individuals and communities to take an active role in shaping their future.

Now working one day a week in Colchester, we’re visiting Emmaus and Sanctuary Supported Living to understand how to best connect the people living at Emmaus Community House and two Sanctuary locations with the skills, knowledge and confidence to succeed in their tenancies.

Together, we’ll work with their residents to design a delivery model that truly works for them. By taking the time to understand how their team operates and the unique challenges their residents face, we can build a program that’s responsive and effective.

We know that co-producing with residents is the key to success, and we’re committed to going the extra mile to create an inclusive, engaging, and restorative experience.

Why homelessness is not a lifestyle choice

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At Your Own Place we support all those individuals and charities appealing to the government not to criminalise rough sleeping in tents or the giving out of tents by charities and others.

We acknowledge the issue is complex, as we have seen before and will again at Christmas, in discussions about whether to give cash to a homeless person. To ameliorate their immediate suffering or to feel powerless against a system we cannot change?

The choice of word ‘lifestyle’ captures the Instagram age in which we live, making the notion that anyone could choose to live in a tent in the same way they might choose to live in a ten bedroom mansion, deeply offensive.

That rough sleeping and all types of homelessness have risen in the last decade is ignored in this ambition, making no effort to acknowledge the complex underlying causes. To say nothing of the impossibility of policing a law of this kind.

Who among us when offered the choice between a safe and secure home and a tent on the streets, would choose a tent? No-one. Because the choice had been removed for those hardest hit by our current housing crisis.

We wholly reject the demeaning, heartless, polarising rhetoric and over-simplification of a failed housing system.