089 - How to Work with Commissioners in Supported Living with Suzanne Gale

In this episode Suzanne Gale shares her experience of being a local authority commissioner and working with many commissioners. She explains who commissioners are, how they work, the role they perform, and what decisions they can and cannot make. She explains what to do if you have a property available and want to approach a commissioner and what to do if you are a provider who wants to work in a particular area. She gives some great advice for small providers about creative ways to get work and for property investors about finding providers to lease your property. Suzanne Gale started out her career teaching 14-19 years olds in South London and then moved into a Supported Housing management job in a Housing Association in the late 90s. She’s taken new opportunities as they’ve arisen, working for a local authority on the Supporting People programme in the early ‘00s, as the National Project Manager for the Care Funding Calculator (now CareCubed) and then working with Councils and Providers to manage depleting budgets whilst maintaining good practice over the years of austerity.More recently she’s focused on driving forward good practice in Supported Living, training, and supporting Local Authority and Provider staff in tenancy law and raising awareness amongst tenants and their families about their rights and responsibilities within a supported housing environment.Currently she’s working with a local authority to implement a shared case management system for people with housing and domestic abuse issues so, again, on a big learning curve responding to the new challenges of the Domestic Abuse Act. Suzanne is a regular contributor to Community Living Magazine and is also training to be an independent legal advocate for adults with learning disabilities and autism. To connect with Suzanne please go to:https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzanne-gale-80079721/ ‌ Domestic Abuse Act: Homelessness new burdens funding 2021 to 2022 Lisa became a property investor after a long nursing career. She initially developed heritage properties and then a chance encounter led her to discover supported living. She realized this was a powerful way to invest in property while creating homes for those who need them most. Lisa set about discovering why property investors struggle to let their properties to supported living providers and why providers struggle to find property to let. She has been educating people, raising awareness and working on solutions to this problem ever since. Lisa is the host of the Supported Living Property Podcast and YouTube channel and formed The Supported Living Property Facebook Group. Lisa is founder of The Supported Living Property Network, a place for property investors and supported living providers to connect, build relationships and communicate about property they have available and/or need. Membership includes access to training courses, monthly training events and networking events. To find out how you can join The Supported Living Property Network please follow this link: https://lisabrown.uk/supported-living-property-network/ You can find out more about Lisa and how you can work with her at her website: http://www.lisabrown.uk Download your free guide to Supported Living Property here: https://lisabrown.uk/supported-living-property-guides-to-download/ To find the video versions of these episodes please go to: https://www.youtube.com/c/LisaBrownProperty Thank you for listening, please do leave a review and subscribe to keep up to date with future episodes.