Bield’s tenants handbook is a model to follow

Scotland’s leading care and housing provider which has its HQ here in Edinburgh are predicting they will have a ‘publishing hit’ on their hands when they launch of their new Tenant Handbook this month.

Bield have spent more than 18 months working on the all-encompassing ‘bible’ for tenants – which they hope is now set to become a model handbook within the sector.

The Handbook, which has been spearheaded by Tenant Participation Officer, Chris McShane, aims to provide tenants with all the necessary information they will need in one handy folder.

Chris McShane said: “It has been a lot of work pulling together the new Tenant Handbook, with tenants at the heart of the consultation process. I am delighted we have reached the stage where we are now ready to issue to tenants.

“We were keen to put it together after finding the original needed updating, given the significant changes that have happened within the organisation over the last few years.

“As a result, we were looking for the new Tenant Handbook to incorporate these changes, on top of ensuring that all of the original key information remained within.”

Chris continued: “When putting together the new book, we wanted to make sure that everything was as clear and concise as possible. We have avoided the use of jargon which was unnecessary and made some parts difficult to understand. Tenants will now be able to refer to the Handbook quickly and easily whenever they need to.

“Tenants have contributed to the development of the new handbook through meetings with myself and through the work of our national tenant body, the Partnership Forum.”

The new Handbook will be available online, as well as in print, for all of their tenants in their housing developments. An audio version will be available for all tenants who prefer this option.

Aileen Morton, Marketing Officer at Bield said: “This guide is incredibly important for our tenants as it contains all of the need-to-know information about their homes and developments.

“This information and the changes within the organisation are the main reasons as to why we decided to pull all of the relevant information together into one easy to use, up-to-date and understandable booklet.

“We hope that by doing this, we can help our tenants live by our ‘free to be’ motto, safe in the knowledge that they have everything they need to live happily and independently in one of our developments.”