Practitioner Top Tips
Practitioner Tips For Success
Practitioner Tips To Get You Motivated
These people have been where you are now and have some top tips and inspirational advice on what they have gained from their experiences.
Lorraine Donaldson
Project Development Manager
Relatively cheap prizes help encourage people to attend community engagement events such as bingo - but make sure they're energy efficient!
Don't start from scratch - check out the resources on this website before developing anything new.
Make sure there's a need for and interest in training on fuel poverty before you commit.
Make your activity relevant to your audience. Help them visualise what they can save financially, give them a need to make savings.
A well informed, motivated 'energy champion' can help you reach far more people than you might expect.
Take time to scope and research what provisions are already in place, parachuting in will neither be welcome nor conducive to legacy planning.
Play back cost benefits – nothing speaks louder than £ and p.
Always ensure you consider the priorities of the person you are speaking to – with cut backs, and stretched resources tackling fuel poverty will often not be a priority. You need to make it simple to identify how action on affordable warmth could help support their wider strategic or operational aims/objectives.
Research the local policy and strategic landscape – identify where benefits could be galvanised through fuel poverty work and utilise this to encourage engagement with the services/support being offered.
Danni Crosland
Project Development Manager
Jimmy Pugh
Project Development Coordinator
Make it more of a social occasion tea and biscuits or if budget allows sandwiches – getting people to relax is the way for them to open up and are a lot more receptive.
Engage with local organisations and deliver jointly sends out a stronger message that everyone is working together towards a common goal. Doing a joint event is also likely to attract a "big hitter" as a keynote speaker.
Avoid doing a stand alone event on energy try to do a mix and match event with different kinds of advice / information e.g. health, fire safety etc. and always with local, trusted, established partners.
Ensure if attending a joint event to speak or compare notes with other speakers if possible to ensure there is not duplication of crossed wires messages.
Ensure publicity goes out well in advance make it eye catching and it is in a venue you have already checked out that is regularly used.
Do something different than a stall giving leaflets out – yep Bingo / Picture quiz, lucky dip, spin the wheel always with prizes - it works.
Identify the perspectives and agendas of partners and ensure the project helps meet these.
In a local scheme added value can be achieved by integrating work on energy, financial inclusion and the health and care agendas.
Ensure buy in from staff at the correct level is sought at initial discussions/meetings. Failure to do this can result in inactivity and little recognition from an organisation as a whole and disappointment for funders. Dealing with well intentioned staff but who have no decision making powers can lead to poor outputs and outcomes.
Seek intelligence from colleagues with previous knowledge of a particular area or organisation before making an approach.
Carefully manage expectations from the offset.
Ensure targets and objectives are achievable.
When dealing with a group of combined authorities, gaining consensus on what activities to deliver can be challenging. It may therefore be best to go in with a list of suggested activities / outcomes.
Diane Bland
Project Development Coordinator
Saleem Sheikh
Project Development Coordinator
Accommodate audience with Hearing Impairment (perhaps provide a hearing loop) engage a British Sign Language practitioner.
Enlist the support of Energy Champions to participate in Focus Groups on Energy Issues. Specific board members of the Residence Association are also very keen to spread the message to neighbouring Associations. The engagement with officers from the Local Authority as a stakeholder is crucial to providing the most upto date Energy related information to the community.
Use Soft-Touch questionnaire for Evaluation and Feedback from the audience. People are put off by lengthy feedback questionnaires.
Leaflets and relevant energy related information must be translated to accommodate the diverse community urban areas. Picture graphics would help.
Community Energy Champions work closely with the local community. They are usually community volunteers and/or members of a Residence Association that meet at regular intervals in the evening. In order to gain maximum benefit, Energy Awareness sessions must be arranged to suite the target audience at a time and place convenient to community members.
Communicating your efforts - don't forget the importance of communicating and celebrating what you are doing. Utilise all avenues available eg newsletters/press releases/personal stories to highlight the issue/social media.
Community events - Keep it fun and interactive.
Terminology is important – many people don't understand the term 'fuel poverty' - so use words they can understand like 'keeping your home warm', 'struggling to pay your energy bill' etc.
Try and get some funding for an award scheme to recognise efforts, and to celebrate and share good practice.
Training - Training internal staff from your organisation to raise awareness of the issue of affordable warmth is just as relevant as getting the message out to external stakeholders. This doesn't have to be formal training – you can use short briefing sessions/newsletters/social media etc.
Statistics – Using local data and statistics (not just fuel poverty, but Excess Winter Deaths, fuel debt figures) can be very helpful in helping you to 'sell' the issue to senior stakeholders and evidencing the need when applying for funding to support your local activities.
Leadership - Try to get your senior managers to embed fuel poverty objectives into appraisals - if you're going to be appraised on it you are more likely to deliver action.
Recruit a champion – Getting a senior champion or political stakeholder on board can support your efforts and mobilise others to take action.
Affordable Warmth Groups - Try setting up an Affordable Warmth Group with relevant partners – it's a good way of developing a multi-agency and joined up approach.
Carole Morgan-Jones
Director, NEA Cymru
Maureen Fildes
Project Development Coordinator
Getting the support of the most senior person in your organisation will help you integrate fuel poverty into everyday work.
