Everyone should be able to feel safe and secure in and outside of their home. At ForHousing, we want to keep tenants safe by dealing with anti-social behaviour. We want tenants to feel heard and supported when they make a complaint. We have Community Safety Coordinators available to deal with cases related to anti-social behaviour once they are reported to us.
Meet Beccy Cottam, one of our Community Safety Coordinators here at ForHousing who works to keep tenants safe.
Please tell us a bit about yourself
I am married with two kids, they’re 7 and 9 and they are my entire life. In the summertime, we like to go out in our campervan and go out explore the countryside and get all muddy!
What was your career path before you came to ForHousing
Prior to working for ForHousing PSCO for Lancashire police 13 years. Initially, I wanted to be a police officer but after I had children, I decided to work for ForHousing so I could spend more time with them as I will have my weekends available.
Tell us more about your role at ForHousing.
I’ve only been in this role for two months, but it’s a diverse role and I don’t know what to expect when I start work for the day. I work with partner agency meetings where we discuss complex cases on domestic abuse and criminal cases before they are taken down the legal route. I joined ForHousing in November 2021 and I started as a Community Safety Officer before becoming a Community Safety Coordinator.
What is your daily work routine?
As a Community Safety Coordinator, the community safety officer will refer a case to me that needs escalating to go down the legal route. Each coordinator has their own responsibilities, I mainly focus on customer satisfaction and will work with external agencies that will receive cases to survey to see how satisfied they are with the work we have carried out. Some of my tasks include preparing cases for legal action and manage legal cases. This makes sure that they are good to use in court. I attend multi agency meetings for high level safeguarding issues such as domestic abuse and child & adult protection.
Can you highlight any teamwork with colleagues and how you collaborate with other departments?
The Community Safety team is a great team, I phone colleagues daily for advice as I can find myself having tunnel vision and not knowing how to think outside the box. We work predominantly with the TSS team to make sure that they can stay in their property and manage it. We also work closely with the Rent team to make sure the tenant can manage their finances.
What message would you like to get across to anyone reading your day in the life about ForHousing and the work they do?
From moving from the public sector to ForHousing, I feel listened to and supported, I feel like it’s a lovely place to work. It’s the little things that make a difference.
To learn more about our anti-social behaviour policy and how we work with tenants to tackle the issues, click here to visit the keeping you safe section.
