Tenant participation: La Verna Housing

This brief report documents the process of introducing participatory appraisal into the management of the La Verna Housing Association, which is based in central London and includes tenants suffering from AIDS. In preparation for a review of the services provided the association decided to adapt a participatory appraisal approach, considering that the association only has twelve tenants and four staff. Five workshops were undertaken defining what services are important to the users and why; which services to prioritize for re-assessment and improvement; and three sessions with joint planning and action. Participatory methods were applied to facilitate the workshops, such as Venn diagrams, matrix scoring and timelines. The report brings up some of the main lessons learnt from the process, non-tenant perspectives, staff-perspectives, and impacts. It is concluded that the approach was helpful in letting staff reaffirm priority areas of work in balance with tenant needs. It also brings up issues leading up to the appraisal, and potential problems of staff feeling that a participative approach could threaten their status as expertise.