There are several exciting opportunities, and we’d love you to take part in as many as you can.

These opportunities are open to all our residents and if you are interested, please get in touch. 

We truly appreciate your time and interest in getting involved—our voluntary opportunities are designed to be flexible around your availability and responsive to any accessibility needs, and we're here to support you in attending groups and making the most of your experience. We can help arrange and cover costs of transport and parking, and we also support online attendance (via Microsoft Teams) if you cannot attend meetings in-person.

  • Resident inspectors

    Join our existing group of resident inspectors, where you’ll carry out a monthly inspection of your estate and submit feedback using an online survey, letting us know what is good and what needs improving. We’ll then feed back your suggestions to the teams that deliver these services.

    This is a remote opportunity and there are incentives available for our inspectors!

  • Resident influencers

    This involves reviewing current and proposed new policies. You’ll provide feedback and suggestions on how you think they could be more effective and easier to understand. If you register with us, we’ll let you know when a review or consultation is due to start, and you can choose if you want to be involved.

    Some of the areas we’ve looked at this year are:

    • Estate services
    • Maintaining your home
    • Aids and adaptations
    • Tenancy fraud
    • Pets
    • Resident expenses.

    To get involved right away you can view our current consultations.

    This opportunity is mostly remote but you may be invited to meetings (in-person or online) when we co-create new policies. Last year, our influencers worked on 10 policies.

  • Scrutiny panel

    West Kent's scrutiny panel is a small group of residents that take a look at particular areas in need of improvement.

    The panel meets regularly to consider how we can deliver better service to our residents and discuss their findings. Their recommendations are then presented to the Board by members of the panel.

    Find out more about our scrutiny panel

  • Contractor representatives

    This involves attending meetings with our repairs team and contractors, to discuss best practices, offer feedback and suggestions. You will be the voice of residents.

    We meet with our contractor representatives three times per year, each meeting lasts for two hours and is normally held in-person. 

  • Neighbourhood inspections

    Our neighbourhood housing officers (NHOs) and resident involvement team regularly visit neighbourhoods to ensure the area you live in is safe and being managed well.

    We want to encourage residents to join the inspections to help us understand the issues that are important to you in the neighbourhood you live.

    Find out more about the inspections

  • Mystery shoppers

    This involves testing our systems and procedures. It will include speaking to our customer services team and feeding back on your experience. 

    This is a four-week project that runs once per year, with remote participation and four required contacts with our customer services team followed by four subsequent surveys. Training will be provided and you will be given a thank you voucher at the end of the project.

  • Communications co-production group

    An exciting project where residents will support the communications and marketing team at West Kent in creating, shaping, and evaluating campaigns and publications. 

    There will be opportunities for members of this group to learn about communications and marketing, to develop their skills, and maybe even attend training with leading experts in the field.

    Meetings are monthly, flexible and may be in-person or held online.

  • New homes advisory group

    We have an opportunity for residents with an interest in new developments and sustainability to be part of an advisory group that will help shape the design brief for new homes.

    The group will meet with our Development team three times per year (typically online), to discuss proposals for any new projects. You will ideally have experience of living in a new-build property, and be happy to share these experiences to provide feedback and guidance.

  • Resident inclusion group

    COMING SOON...

    Application form

    We know that we receive a higher number of complaints from residents with a disability. So, we’re looking to work with a group of residents with lived experience or residents who support others with disabilities, neurodiversity, mental ill health or other additional needs.

    The group will help to identify how we shape our services to ensure they are accessible and inclusive, and meet the needs of all our residents. We want to remove stigma and help our residents feel empowered to speak out about services that affect them.

    Meetings will be held every three months, either online or in-person at accessible venues. You are welcome to bring a carer with you, and we will also be able to support residents requiring British Sign Language or easy read documents.

    To get involved in the group, we would like you to complete a short application form. If you need some help with the application, we can come and meet you in person or discuss this on the phone with you.