WISH East: Regenerate, Adapt and Flourish

The theme of this summer's WISH newsletter, "Rewilding – learning to embrace the path unknown", resonates deeply with the WISH East Board.

A summer meadow is vibrant, natural, and filled with flowers, bees, and butterflies. It’s beautiful, but wild: a path untrodden. Rewilding in nature is associated with allowing ecosystems to regenerate, adapt, and flourish without controlling every outcome. There is something powerful about applying that concept to our careers and our sector.

Many of us entered social housing with a clear sense of purpose, but perhaps not a clear map of where that purpose would take us. Careers evolve, opportunities emerge unexpectedly, and some of our most significant moments of growth come from stepping into spaces that feel unfamiliar. Whether taking on a first management role, changing specialism, joining a board, leading a major programme, or simply speaking up in a room where we once felt hesitant, progress often requires us to embrace uncertainty. Growth rarely happens within the boundaries of what feels comfortable.

These thoughts about career rewilding were reflected in our online conversation event on the 7^th July, where we explored one of the most important conversations currently taking place within housing: The Competence and Conduct Standard. We were delighted to facilitate a conversation between:

• Helen Walsham, Chief Corporate Services Officer, Bromford Flagship LiveWest
• Carrie McKenzie, Executive Director of Corporate Services, Moat
• Sandra Maguire, Neighbourhood Operations Manager at Moat and Chair of the WISH East Board

Together, they shared their insights on what the new standard means for individuals, teams and organisations, and how we can collectively build the confidence, capability and culture required to meet the challenges ahead.

Some of the key themes included:

• Career pathways in housing; they are not always linear and haven’t previously followed a sector standard of competence and professionalism.
• Meeting and evidencing compliance with the new Standard is not simply about qualifications. It’s about entering the sector with purpose, holding ourselves and each other to account, and creating safe environments for people to raise issues.
• The Standard presents an opportunity to reflect on and influence the type of leadership, accountability, behaviours, culture, and professionalism that will shape the future of housing.
• Rather than duplicating effort, we need to come together to share best practice, discuss failures and lessons learnt, and challenge each other to achieve a duty of candour across the sector as the new regulations progress.
• We have started the conversation and will be organising follow-up events and discussions very soon.

The conversation feels particularly aligned with our summer theme. The future of housing is still unfolding. New expectations, new regulations, and new ways of working continue to emerge. We don’t yet have all of the answers, but uncertainty shouldn’t prevent progress. Instead, it should encourage curiosity, collaboration, and learning.

Perhaps that is the true essence of rewilding: having the courage and confidence to move forward without needing to see the entire path.

On 2 July, we held our Summer Networking Evening in Colchester. Kindly sponsored by Potter Raper, and the event was a huge success in a new location that we’ll be returning to.

We had some valuable feedback from our attendees:

‘Great event an opportunity to meet people from different industries and have meaningful conversation’.

‘This event has made me want to learn more about WISH’.

‘ I feel like this event has been a great opportunity to be an ally for an event where I hadn’t realised was open for men’.

‘ This will be the first of many WISH event for me, loved it’.

As we navigate change together, let us continue to plant flowers along the way. Let us create opportunities for sharing experiences openly, celebrating achievements, and supporting each other.

We hope to see many of you at upcoming events and look forward to continuing the conversation on Competence & Conduct.

The WISH East Board