Our Objectives
Our aim is to help housing providers achieve the highest standards in equality and diversity.

By working in partnership with housing providers and providing advice, practical assistance and support, we aim to assist them in:

• understanding the diverse needs and aspirations of the communities they serve,


• developing and implementing products and services to meet these needs and aspirations,


• removing barriers to participation and employment across the housing sector,


• promoting inclusion for individuals from all communities.

Our Approach
The Housing Diversity Network is a flexible resource for organisations seeking to make progress in the areas of equality and diversity. Our services include:

• Consultancy. We are specialist providers of advice on equality and diversity issues to the housing sector. We provide a wide range of consultancy services to help organisations improve their performance on equality and diversity.


• Training. We work with clients to develop training courses on a wide range of equality and diversity topics specifically tailored to meet their needs. We also offer a calendar of open courses.


• Events and Seminars. We run seminars on specific themes related to equality and diversity which are open to organisations across the UK. Details of any forthcoming events can be found in our News & Events section.


• Corporate Membership Network. Our corporate membership network offers a range of benefits including access to our unique enquiry line service giving instant access to expert advice. We also offer members free job advertising, discounts on seminar places and training courses and regular email briefings on equality and diversity topics.

Our Organisation Structure
The Network is a Company Limited by Guarantee, registered in England and Wales.

Our Company Number is 4888412 and our Registered Office is Colne Valley House, 511b Blackmoorfoot Road, Huddersfield, HD4 5NR. Click here for our full contact details.

The Board

We currently have 7 Directors, who form our Board:

• Ian Gregg, (Chair), Director of Asset Management, Parkway Green Housing Trust


• Lisa Burns, Head of Corporate Services, Northern Counties


• Cym D'souza, Chief Executive, Arawak Walton Housing Association


• Jill Hellings, Head of Corporate Services, Leeds Federated Housing Association


• Sheila Rush, Regulation & Diversity Officer, Accent Group


• Claudia Walsh, Area Manager, Yorkshire Metropolitan HA


• Munir Ahmed, Chief Executive, Ashiana HA

Our Staff Team
We have five members of staff working from our office in Huddersfield:

Samantha Miller, Chief Executive
Samantha joined the Network in October 2006 having previously worked as North West regional manager for the National Housing Federation. Sam has many years experience of equality and diversity issues and an in-depth knowledge of the housing sector.

Eugene Pinnock, Mentoring Co-ordinator (North)
Eugene joined the Network in May 2006 and is responsible for organising mentoring programmes in the North of England.

Kamaljit Sunner, Mentoring Co-ordinator (South)
Kamaljit joined the Network in July 2007 and is responsible for organising mentoring programmes in the South of England.

Katherine Joynson, Finance Administrator
Kath joined the Network in November 2005 and is responsible for our finance and administration.

Hannah Mason, Events & Publicity Co-ordinator
Hannah joined the Network in July 2007 and is responsible for organising the networks events and seminars.

Our Associates
Our team of associate consultants and trainers have in-depth knowledge of both the housing sector and equality and diversity issues and offer a high level of professional involvement to help deliver the results you need.

John Dembovskis
John has substantive experience of consulting across the public sector on equality and diversity issues. He has worked with national and local decision-makers on the development and delivery of Race Equality and Diversity policies and compliance with Equality Standards with regulatory and local authorities.
John has worked with many BME communities and customer groups on understanding customer service needs of Older People, Young People, Black People, LGBT People, People with Disabilities and Women Survivors of Domestic Violence as key customer groups and has helped to assess service provision gaps or priorities and any discriminatory practice in housing associations and many other organisations.
John has facilitated staff groups, in particular at management level, using various reflective thinking techniques, identifying causal blockers in customer service and performance with equalities. John challenges any groups he facilitates, in their behaviours and attitudes and derives the most satisfaction when organisations remove barriers that have negative impacts on service delivery.

Tony Gordon
Tony is from Stretford and has extensive experience of working in both an official and voluntary capacity, helping to create effective partnership working between black and ethnic minority communities and public and voluntary sector bodies across the North West region. Tony runs a training consultancy working with the public and voluntary sectors and is currently a lay advisor to HMIC around equality issues. Tony sits as a community school governor for St Matthews Primary School.

Daniela Hawryliuk
Daniela joined the Network as an Associate in May 2005 and has worked with a wide range of housing organisations on equality and diversity issues, both as a consultant and developing and delivering training. She is currently a senior lecturer and course leader in Housing Studies at Sheffield Hallam University. Prior to this Daniela worked for 18 years for Sheffield City Council in a variety of managerial roles including housing management, regeneration, RSL partnership development and equality and diversity.

Chris Root
Chris has been working in the area of equality and diversity for over 20 years and has been in the housing sector for over 14 of those years, working as an advisor with housing associations and with the Housing Corporation. Since Chris has become an independent consultant she has worked for many housing organisations, ALMOs and health authorities. Her experience and skills include equality and diversity training development and delivery, conference organisation and strategy, policy and action plan development. Chris can work at all levels of an organisation, integrating equality and diversity into all areas from front-line staff and customer involvement to senior management, board and governance.

Paramjeet Uppal
Paramjeet Uppal is an independent consultant and has worked with public, voluntary and community sector organisations to deliver regeneration and community cohesion programmes. She has a strong racial equality background, having served on the National Housing Federation Race Inquiry. She is a specialist in analysing customer requirements through research and engagement with communities.
Paramjeet has developed equality and diversity training programmes aimed at board members, staff and tenants. She has developed different ways of engaging customers and staff to improve service delivery and has developed a strong understanding of tenant and resident expectations. Paramjeet was invited to serve on the Home Office Community Cohesion Panel for Housing Practitioners following the Cantle report. She is currently a board member of Horton Housing Association who house and support socially excluded groups.

Our Partners & Supporters
We would like to thank the large number of organisations who have supported us since the idea for the Network first came about.

In particular, we are grateful to the NHF North and all the Housing Associations that were an active part of the Yorkshire, Humberside & North East BME Forum for coming up with the idea for us, seeing it through to fruition and supporting us during the early stages of our development.

Without support from the Housing Corporation through the Innovation & Good Practice Grant programme there would never have been a Network and we are also grateful to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for the support they provided through the Special Grants Programme. During our first year, the Places for People Group, Sanctuary Housing, the Home Group, Brunel Housing Association and the Chartered Institute of Housing (Yorkshire & Humberside Branch) all supported us with donations to get our work off the ground. More recently, the Accent Foundation have also played an essential role in our development by supporting us with 12 months transitional funding to allow us to develop new services and make the leap to becoming fully self-financing.

A huge debt of gratitude also goes to the Accent Group who acted as our 'bankers' for the first two years of our existence and especially the staff members who gave their time to keeping our accounts and financial records.

The images used throughout this website and on our promotional material have kindly been provided by a number of different organisations including Leeds & Yorkshire Housing Association, Sadeh Lok Housing Group and Leeds Federated Housing Association.

Last but by no means least, our thanks to all the organisations who have chosen (and continue to choose!) to use our services. Details of our training & consultancy clients and our Network members can be found elsewhere on the site so we won't repeat the list here - you know who you are!

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Our VAT no. is 865 2704 12

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