NHA's Commitment to Resident Wellbeing and Mental Health
If the last few years have shone a light on any one major area for improved processes and outside-of-the-box thinking, it’s our collective mental health and wellbeing.
Here at NHA, we’ve certainly never taken the mental health of our residents lightly. But we’ve definitely seen shifts in need and we also continue to learn and understand more and more of what we don’t yet know.
Our approach as an organization has always been “keep doing what’s working, but let’s not be afraid to admit when something could be improved or thought about differently” and in a nutshell that’s what the pandemic has taught us about our approach to resident wellness: we’re doing some of the right things, but there is still much to learn.
What We Already Do
Over the years we have developed and improved quite a number of areas and ways in which we continue to support our residents’ overall wellbeing.
In 2016, we formed the Community Advisory Group (CAG), with the very specific aim of giving residents a more direct and communal line into the organization, and to improve transparency from the organization to residents. The CAG has taken on some shifts over time, but it has been absolutely critical in ensuring that consistently, all voices of Norfolk have a chance to be heard. And it is the main mechanism through which residents initiate changes in our organization, offering suggestions for process improvements, community-building opportunities, and even noting when specific folks need different supports.
If you follow us on social media, then you may be well aware that we use it to share resources and opportunities for community connection with residents, neighbours, and the larger community of Calgary. This is by design: we know that not every resident is going to feel comfortable contacting us to request supports, so in this way we can still provide support “hands off”. We replicate this information, as well as more pertinent organizational details, in our monthly resident newsletter - which boasts over a 90% read rate!
Additionally, we have several organizational policies and procedures that support not only the ongoing wellness of the organization and the assets (the units) but also greatly contribute to resident welfare. Things like our open-door policy with residents and our annual suite inspections help us personalize support for residents on an individual basis and support residents into feeling safe coming to us with concerns without feeling their housing will be jeopardized.
What We Are Learning
In 2022 it became obvious to us that there had to be solutions or options we weren’t coming up with in-house (we are experts on housing and compassionate folks, but not social workers and we are aware of the gap this can create!). So we applied for funding and hired an independent third party to conduct a Resident Wellness Study.
The research began in the late fall and now is entering the qualitative (interview) research phase, kicking off with interviews of Norfolk residents, staff, and partners to further explore and understand resident perceptions of wellness, and existing barriers and supports to wellness at Norfolk. Interviews will also include questions from the Rural Development Network, in Edmonton, exploring how to support greater community inclusion at Norfolk through shared spaces.
Once the interviews are conducted and analyzed for findings, the data will be combined with phase one (investigating best practices and examples of wellness systems in community housing models), and result in a policy and implementation recommendation for enhancing wellness at Norfolk, as well as outline publicly available resources and supports to increase wellness at Norfolk for both residents and staff.
Though it’s too soon to anticipate where these findings might lead us, we are excited and hopeful that they’ll provide answers, options, and solutions to ensure that our definition of a thriving community can continue to include and support everyone who makes their home with NHA.
We look forward to sharing more as we go, check back here in the fall for those findings and implementations! And follow along on our social pages for timely updates (find those links at the top and bottom of this page).