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The NCLR Homeownership Network Learning Alliance (NHNLA) is a training and certification program for housing counselors. The certification courses were developed in collaboration with over 50 NCLR Homeownership Network (NHN) agencies, which operate in many major cities and rural communities throughout the country. Since the NHN’s inception more than ten years ago, NCLR has collaborated with community-based organizations nationwide to streamline the delivery of housing counseling to ensure:
- Efficient delivery of material to increase the local impact
- Effective results based on family needs
- Culturally competent communication strategies
As the NHN was developing and acquiring more affiliate organizations as subgrantees, NCLR made a strategic move to provide a technical assistant (TA) to each agency whose primary responsibility was the following:
- Work in collaboration with agency staff to learn their processes and procedures in the delivery of counseling to learn if changes should be made
- Review use of online technology and integrate the usage into the daily work of counselors
- Assist managers to develop their programs as a means to increase capacity
- This process allowed TA’s to learn and observe agency staff in a variety of markets across the country and understand how to duplicate processes and increase efficiency. They were able to break down the counseling process and identify the most effective way to provide families with much needed information without sacrificing the number that were served.
As a HUD Intermediary, the NHN was in a unique position to expand over time. As we began to implement our streamlined strategies, the ability to invest in developing new agencies where capacity was needed became an easier process. The amount of time required to implement a program and begin seeing a larger number of families was reduced.
A great example is an organization that became an NHN subgrantee in 2005. They were a small counseling agency that had merged with a larger social service non-profit in the area. The staff consisted of a mid manager, one housing counselor, and two other staff to work on other housing related issues. Within two years of developing in the NHN model and the same number of staff, the agency saw 450 counseling clients annually with over 50 successfully purchasing their first home- in Detroit, MI.
These strategies became the foundation for two of the courses we are now offering through NHNLA. As the curriculum was being developed we gathered all of the experiences TA’s had throughout the 10 years with all 50 organizations and documented the processes. We then went back to key managers and counselors within the NHN and had them review the material and make sure that it modeled how the service was being delivered within their agencies. It was a process over 10 years in the making. These courses embody the success that was replicated in over 50 organizations in 24 states and 41 housing markets.
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