Webinar: Igniting Culture Change in Housing Professionals
Key details:
- Date: 30 September 2025
- Time: 9:30am - 11:00am
- Location: Online
- Price: Free
Igniting Culture Change in Housing Professionals: An ARK Consultancy online seminar
Join us on Tuesday 30 September at 9:30am to engage with three experienced speakers discussing culture change and professionalism from their own perspectives:
• Professor Vikki McCall University of Stirling
• Helen Scurr ARK Consultancy
• Shaun Harley Lincolnshire Housing Partnership
• Kirsty Wells, ARK Consultancy will chair the session.
‘Culture change’ and ‘professionalism’ are phrases of the moment within the social housing sector, but they can be abstract and subjective without meaningful planning and preparation behind projects designed to achieve transformation.
Our online seminar is designed to provide delegates with the space to debate first-hand insights about some of the key elements required to improve organisational culture and staff behaviours and attitudes towards tenants and residents.
Housing qualifications are important to demonstrate the level of professional competence of an employee, but without empathy and compassion, there is no guarantee that person will deliver the service outcomes that a tenant needs. At a strategic level, housing organisations must respond to the government’s agenda of building more homes, repairing and improving existing homes, placing customers at the heart of service delivery and safeguarding vulnerable residents, all while recruiting and retaining the right staff is more difficult than ever.
By attending our online seminar, you will gain key learning points to support you to ignite culture change, professionalism and changing behaviours amongst your colleagues in your own organisation.
What you’ll discover:
| Time | Session | Speakers |
|---|---|---|
| 9:30am | Welcome | Kirsty Wells |
| 9:35am | Professional development: the need for empathy and reflective learning | Professor Vikki McCall |
| 10:05am | Cultural improvement: embedding professionalism in organisations | Helen Scurr |
| 10:30am | Creating opportunity: investing in colleagues and improving customer outcomes | Shaun Harley |
| 10:55am | Final remarks | Kirsty Wells |
Who should attend: Senior leaders, HR professionals, team managers, and anyone passionate about creating positive change in their housing organisation.
Speakers
Kirsty Wells – Assistant Director, ARK
Kirsty is an experienced housing professional with a career spanning 28 years. The last 25 of these have been with national membership organisations in Scotland and the UK. She spent thirteen years as a Development Manager with the Tenants Information Service (TIS) and most recently she was the Director of Consultancy with Housemark. Kirsty’s passion and expertise lies in housing policy and tenant and resident influence.
Helen Scurr – Executive Director, ARK
Helen is an experienced housing professional, Trustee, NED, and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Housing, who has influenced housing policy and practice as a Trustee on the CIH National Council. She was involved in the CIH membership Governance review which changed the regional and business unit approach. She is the Chair of a Shropshire based Charity and a Non-Executive Director for a training provider.
Helen has worked at executive and senior level with both housing organisations and charities during the last thirty years, having strategic and operational responsibilities for housing and property services.
As a Consultant, Helen has led on and been involved in a wide spectrum of assignments. She leads ARK’s People business stream and works with Executive teams and Boards to undertake governance and cultural reviews. She has led on major regeneration engagement initiatives which have included tenant and resident engagement activities.
Shaun Harley – Interim Chief Executive Officer, Lincolnshire Housing Partnership
Shaun leads on culture, leadership, change and organisational development, with a focus on building inclusive, modern workplaces. Drawing on lived experience of social housing and a background in people-centred change, Shaun helps organisations strengthen leadership, align around values and create the conditions for colleagues and customers to flourish.
Professor Vikki McCall
Professor Vikki McCall is a leading expert in reflective practice, empathy, and the intersection of housing and health. She holds a Chair in Social Policy at the University of Stirling and is co-founder and Creative Director of Socialudo, a serious game initiative combining research and serious play to drive social change.
Vikki’s work explores how frontline workers, service users, and policy actors co-create more person-centred systems. Her recent paper, The Reflective Housing Practitioner (Housing and Society, 2025), makes a compelling case for embedding empathy and reflective learning into housing qualifications and professional development.
She leads the £2.1M ISPA study on ageing, place, disability and stigma and works closely with the Inclusive Living Alliance to support more inclusive practice and raise standards of professionalism in the housing sector. Vikki regularly trains practitioners, educators and policymakers across the UK on values-led, reflective approaches that bridge housing and health.
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