Colleagues from the Greater Manchester Housing Providers (GMHP) gathered to celebrate the graduation of the Year 2 BOOST programme candidates.
BOOST aims to address the lack of representation of colleagues from ethnically diverse backgrounds in leadership by breaking down barriers to recruitment and progression and creating a context where the talents of ethnically diverse leaders can thrive.
Southway leads on BOOST for GMHP, and our Chief Executive John Bowker welcomed everyone to the Graduation event. He spoke about some of the successes and highlights from the last year, which saw members build on the inclusive recruitment projects of Year 1 with new ideas based around the theme of Progression. These have included:
- Looking at succession planning
- Facilitating job shadowing
- Providing further development opportunities
Guest speaker Sharon Amesu, co-founder of She Leads for Legacy, gave an inspiring talk about the power of BOOST and her personal experiences. Mentees and mentors shared their journey on the programme, including their mentoring relationships and what made them want to take part.
Charlie Norman, Chief Executive of MSV and Chair of GMHP, presented the 19 mentors and 19 mentees with their certificates.
Guests also heard Julia Rouse, Professor at MMU and Lead Academic on BOOST, who call on leadership to address the underrepresentation of ethnically diverse leadership and improve the experiences of ethnically diverse colleagues in housing.
On the programme, mentors and mentees have monthly sessions where they work towards the mentee’s goal as part of the GROW model of coaching (Goal, Reality, Options, Way Forward) which BOOST has adapted for mentoring pairs.
Many mentees and mentors have been attending conferences together, visiting one another’s organisations. Mentees have also attended board meetings and committees.
Reciprocal learning is a key part of the BOOST model which enables the movement to be more disruptive in creating change. To support this our mentors have learnt about the experiences of our mentees and their experiences at work, particularly in regard to race.
The success of this year’s scheme has seen five mentees gain new roles, three of which have been internal moves at Riverside, Jigsaw Homes and L&Q. The other two have earned new roles at both One Manchester and MSV.
Five of the mentees progressed into new roles while being on the programme. Three are undertaking a new qualification, while two more are doing other professional development including the Housing Diversity Network’s trainee board programme.
This year also seen organisations tackle the cultural change aspect of BOOST, a big part of which is the GMHP-wide training for leaders and managers that will begin to be rolled out in the next few months.
Cohort 3 for BOOST started earlier this month, with 19 new mentors and mentees joining our Movement. We’re also excited to have a new housing association involved, Arawak Walton.
