Jenny Vernon

Jenny's biography

Jenny has had over 30 years’ experience in the social housing sector, starting out as a community activist and ending up as Director of Good Governance Network. She specialises in supporting organisations going through change or challenging times, enabling all concerned to have a voice, contribute to final decision making and achieve sustainable outcomes.

In her consultancy work, she combines strong interpersonal and communication skills with excellent project management and customer focus, making her a popular choice to support organisations going through challenging/changing times.

Personally committed to continuous improvement, she encourages her clients to undertake their journey at a pace that supports stable, continued and measureable success.  As each client comes with its own unique set of circumstances, all project work is shaped to that organisation’s needs.  Jenny invests in getting to know and understand each client and the outcomes they require at the outset of each project.  This ethos allows projects to flex to meet organisational need and Jenny is quite happy to contribute towards this development.

Completing a BA(Hons) in 1988, Jenny has a post-graduate Diploma in Housing from University of the West of England, along with other post-graduate certificates in Business Performance Coaching and Business Psychology.  She is a member of the Chartered Institute of Housing and Chair of United Housing Association (the largest BME specialist housing organisation in the south west).

Relevant areas of experience

• Reviewing/embedding effective organisational governance, co-regulation and resident involvement
• Designing and delivering bespoke training for staff, board members and residents in support of these activities
• Developing toolkits to support continuous assessment/improvement of these activities
• Acting as independent critical friend, assessing the effectiveness of governance and co-regulation practices
• Coaching/mentoring resident scrutiny groups
• Providing Lead Independent Advisor service for developing tenant management organisation
• Consulting staff/residents during periods of change
• Coaching/mentoring staff/residents during periods of change
• Facilitating, speaking or running conference workshops
• Embedding organisational-wide value for money ethos
• Running independent focus groups in support of change/improvement