Ethos Public Relations Manchester

Tenants love e-Learning

by Ethos public relations

Tenants love e-learning say the Housing e-Academy, a division of Virtual College with over 580,000 learners. The company has been staggered by the number of requests it has received for its free tenant training mini courses which it has been releasing throughout August.

“As a result of feedback from our existing members, we have developed a series of free training courses,” explains Head of the Housing e-Academy, Chloe Weatherhead. “We have deliberately kept everything really simple to use so that all housing organisations have to do is register online - then tenants just sign in to access the courses.

“In just a few weeks we’ve had over 50 new housing organisations sign up, that’s in addition to our existing member organisations already using the courses.”

The Housing e-Academy has worked with TAROE (the national umbrella organisation for tenants and residents associations) and Leeds GATE (gypsies and travellers exchange) to develop the learning, which covers a wide range of subjects.

They include consumer topics such as How to Save Energy and Feeding a Family on a Budget – to more community focused activities such as Building a Community or Issues around Alcohol. Some of the courses are designed to help residents develop their personal skills such as Getting Started with Social Media or Preparing for Interviews.

The most popular module so far has been Dealing with Anti-Social Behaviour.

Accent Group own and manage over 19,000 properties across the country and are a keen advocate of e-learning. Management Information Systems Co-ordinator, Kelly Hogg, said the Group has welcomed this initiative, which helps meet some of its own corporate objectives around resident involvement.

“We have set a target to provide training to 20% of our tenants,” she said. “We are promoting the Housing e-Academy mini courses via an e-learning leaflet and in our tenant magazine.

“This really is a timely idea from the Housing e-Academy. The free courses are particularly welcome at a time when our budgets are being squeezed and they will also help Accent Group meet its training target quickly.”

There are 18 courses available for tenants to try. For more information about the free tenant mini courses call 01943 885085 or e-mail info@housingea.co.uk.

For more news from Housing e-Academy click here.

Posted at 17^th August 2011