Get involved

Who gets involved?

Anyone! If you want to make things better or tell us what it's really like to be a PCH tenant, we'd like you to be involved.

Why be involved?

If you get involved with PCH you can:

Improve things for you and your neighbourhood
Help us to make key decisions that will affect residents and improve our services
Learn new skills, access free training and improve your confidence
Boost your chances of getting paid work or into further education
Meet new people and make new friends

How much time?

You can give as little or as much time as you like. We have a variety of options to suit everyone's lifestyle - from a five minute online survey, to being part of our Mystery Shopper group.

How to get involved

There are lots of ways to get involved. Here's how...

Involved online
Get involved from afar and talk about PCH issues important to your with staff and other residents from the comfort of your own home.

Surveys

Compete online surveys that we carry out each year by looking out for them on our website or on social media. You can also visit our Consultations page to join in on any current consultations or surveys.

Social media

Keep up to date with the latest news and events from PCH on Facebook and Twitter. You can message us too and we'll make sure we reply.
- Facebook - PlymouthCommunityHomes
- Twitter - PlymCommHomes
- YouTube - Plymouth Community Homes
Involved in your area

Make-a-difference days

These are one off days that join together local residents, staff and other organisations we work with to clean up neighbourhoods and talk about local issues.

Events and projects

We can work with you to organise a fun day, a trip or a longer project.

Walkabouts

We’re looking for residents to join us on a walkabout of our neighbourhoods.

We want all our residents to live within neighbourhoods that are safe, clean and attractive and we’d like you to work with us to make sure yours is well maintained.

This is an opportunity to show us something on your street or block that may need improving. This can be at a time and date that suits you.

The Housing Management Team routinely completes walkabouts and anyone can join us. We look for abandoned vehicles, fly tipping, graffiti, and check the general condition of communal areas and the land around where you live.

We then report any issues and work with our colleagues in other departments to monitor them using a traffic light system.

If you’d like to join us, e-mail walkabouts@plymouthcommunityhomes.co.uk or call 0808 230 6500 to speak to your Housing Team.

Focus groups

Come along to a group session with other residents to give your views and ideas for one of our services.

Tenants and residents groups

Groups are a great way to get things done. Here at PCH we support residents to set up and successfully run different types of groups.

To be a successful group it is important to know what type of group you would like to be. To help you decide, simply check the guidelines below.

Your group does not have to be supported by PCH but there are some benefits to you if it is.

First, you should decide with it is your group is hoping to do...

We have some problems we would like to solve

Maybe you don't need a group. Initially you could talk to your Housing Officer or Councillor or join Neighbourhood Watch.

We want to get people together for social activities

We would recommend a Social Group with Principles. This is an informal group structure with everyone helping out.

We want to make positive changes in our community

We would recommend that you become a Constituted Group. This is a formal group with a Chairperson, a Secretary and Treasurer. You will need to have regular meetings and keep the minutes of those meetings. You will need to vote in the committee members.

We would like more of a say in PCH's services

We have a range of opportunities for both groups and individuals to get involved with PCH. If you would like to know more then look through our other involvement options.

If you're not sure or if people have different opinions then we will be happy to meet with you to talk more about it.

We also have resources to help you with your group - information, templates, support and training.
Involved in change

Armchair Advisers

Help us from the comfort of your own home - check our documents and easy to understand, and email, call or text your ideas to us for our In Touch magazine.

Mystery shoppers and reality checkers

Be part of our team of trained residents and test our services. You can shadow and interview our staff and other residents as well as run a focus group.

Board members

As a Board Member you will be involved in key decisions that will affect PCH and our residents across the city.

Resident Scrutiny Team

Join our Resident Scrutiny Team - a group of trained residents who work as a team to look in depth at areas of our service and suggest how we can improve them.

You can also view our Resident Involvement overview which includes all of our opportunities.

Resident involvement expenses

We recognise the importance of residents being involved in decisions that affect their homes and lives. We want to encourage involvement and out-of pocket expenses can deter residents from becoming involved. We will reimburse genuine out-of-pocket expenses incurred as a result of involvement.

Read our Residents' Expenses Policy which sets out when we will reimburse expenses, and what is needed in order to claim.

Complete the Residents’ Expenses Claim form in order to make a claim for expenses.