HOUSING CASE STUDY: INSPIRING PEOPLE TO BE THE BEST THEY CAN, WITH THE RIGHT HOME, AND THE

RIGHT RELATIONSHIPS

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ABOUT BROMFORD

Bromford are a creative non-profit network for health,

housing, care, and education. They provide services for

90,000 customers and deliver one of the largest housing association-led new homes

programmes throughout the South West and Midlands, with a planned investment of £1.5bn in 14,000 new homes over the

next decade.

As part of the Urban Challenge Wellbeing Award, and in

collaboration with Elemental Software, Bromford, launched an innovative social prescribing

pilot earlier this year.

THE CHALLENGE

The 12 week pilot, which was commissioned by the West Midlands Combined Authority, Digital Wellbeing and Urban Challenge aimed to make

the West Midlands a better place to live and work using digital social prescribing technology.

For Bromford, it was vital to put the customer at the heart of the pilot. They

believe that with the right home and the right relationship, everyone can achieve more. Working in collaboration with our team and using our Core

platform, Bromford aimed to take a ‘localities’ approach, meaning that their Neighbourhood Coaches would work closely with customers in specific

areas to develop strong relationships and help them to manage their own health and wellbeing using community based programmes and services.

THE OBJECTIVES

Provide enhanced support through better

connectivity, personalisation and self-

directed support methods

Use digital technology to improve health and well-being outcomes in the

area

Demonstrate how digital platforms can be used to

support better mental health and well-being outcomes across the

region

“The impact of poor housing on mental and physical health is well evidenced so we were excited to kick off this pilot with Bromford. We worked closely with their incredible team and quickly established that we shared a vision to improve

residents’ lives through social prescribing. Bromford are an inspiring, innovative and forward thinking organisation that strongly recognise the relationship between health and housing. We are blown away by the amazing results they achieved in

such a short space of time using our Core social prescribing platform and we can’t wait to see what’s to come in the near future.

Jennifer Neff, Elemental Software Co-founder

THE SOLUTION

The pilot was conducted by two Neighbourhood Coaches within the Black Country locality, with the aspiration that the approach would be embedded further afield, leading

to empowered communities taking control of their own health outcomes.

The reporting feature allowed Neighbourhood Coaches to set a baseline for a customer’s social and mental wellbeing at the outset which then allowed them to monitor and measure the impact of social

prescriptions in real time. By setting a baseline, Neighbourhood Coaches found that this gave further insight into the emotional character of the customer, allowing them apply their coaching skills to the

individual in a personalised way.

Using Elemental’s Core platform, Neighbourhood Coaches had the ability to instantly connect customers to social prescribing programmes and services which would help them to thrive and grow, such as Citizens Advice Bureau, housing support, employment support and finance advice.

Using the reporting feature within Elemental Core, Neighbourhood Coaches could access, report and showcase detailed data analytics which then helped to demonstrate the impact that the pilot was making in communities, shape the social prescribing pilot and identify areas which required further support.

NEXT STEPS

Building on the success of their social prescribing pilot scheme, Bromford are interested to learn more about how the WMCA see the progression of social

prescribing or connecting communities within the wider West Midlands.

Customers receiving a social prescription were connected to an existing service within Bromford’s offer as part of our existing Neighbourhood Coaching Model.

The part that was particularly interesting for us was understanding the difference this made. Whilst the customer experience may not have been too different, the Elemental software did give us and the customer time to really understand how much difference the prescription would make. Being part of the pilot has really helped us to understand the value of the connections made to services both

within Bromford and externally, like the CAB, giving us greater insight into the approach we have in our communities.

Vicky Green, Head of Localities, Black Country

elementalsoftware.co