Tuesday 2 January 2007
Cash to tackle anti-social behaviour

Bedfordshire's leading affordable housing provider has been awarded a cash grant to tackle anti-social behaviour in some of the area's most deprived wards.

bpha is one of only five housing associations in the country to have been awarded Housing Corporation funding to run a Family Intervention Project (FIP).

The £50,000 grant will be used by bpha to employ a dedicated family intervention officer, who will work alongside those families found to be causing nuisance behaviour in the Kempston North, Goldington and Cauldwell and Kingsbrook areas.

John Cross, chief executive of bpha, said: "The first priority in tackling nuisance behaviour must be to protect the community. But we need solutions that work in the long term. Sometimes the best way of doing that, alongside taking firm action, is to offer support to people to change their behaviour.

"Anti-social behaviour can often stem from family breakdown, lack of parenting skills, problems with drugs and alcohol and mental health issues.

"Support programmes can get to the root of these problems and put an end to behaviour that damages other people's lives. This project will help to bring together the various agencies involved to ensure the right steps are taken to address anti-social behaviour in the long term."

The new intervention officer will help to set up meetings between families and other agencies, put together support plans and help families to access community learning, training, or employment where needed.

bpha receives reports of nearly 500 cases of anti-social behaviour each year.
The project aims to employ measures to help families change their behaviour without losing their homes. Where offers of help are continually refused, bpha will continue to take action through the courts to protect the wider community.

John Cross said: "The project will ensure we are tackling and not tolerating perpetrators of anti-social behaviour with a three-pronged approach - prevention, enforcement and rehabilitation."

Announcing the funding, John Rouse, chief executive of the Housing Corporation, said: "Through a wide range of projects that deal with issues ranging from health and addiction, to education and employment, we hope to tackle the important issue of anti-social behaviour and its prevention.

"This is about working in partnership with families to work through these problems and get to the root of these challenges. I look forward to seeing how these individual schemes develop, reinforcing the pivotal role that housing providers play in neighbourhoods and communities."

The funding has been awarded as bpha has underlined its public commitment to tackling anti-social behaviour, by signing up to the Government's Respect Standard for Housing Management

The standard ensures that housing associations are delivering on their promises by working with communities and taking action where it is needed.