Housing Minister Caroline Flint has launched a new guide showing how housing and regeneration professionals can successfully reach Muslim communities and improve their participation and acceptance in the wider community.

The new Guide to Engaging Muslim Communities from the Chartered Institute of Housing and Matrix Housing Partnership, published today, demonstrates successful work in engaging diverse Muslim communities in housing and regeneration, including women and young people, who can be particularly hard to reach. Many of the examples show how important it can be to help isolated communities build their self-confidence.

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All the examples show the need for professionals to avoid being insensitive about faith issues and to have a basic knowledge of how a faith such as Islam governs people's daily lives.

Ms Flint said: "I welcome the contribution this guide will make to ensuring housing professionals value and understand the diversity of our communities and the needs of different families. Muslim families can often find themselves isolated from the housing services and regeneration plans on their doorsteps. Best practice in this guide demonstrates there is no good reason for this."

John Perry, CIH Policy Adviser, said: "The encouraging aspect of developing the guide was to find out that there are already many examples of engagement with Muslim communities, often in innovative ways. We hope that the guide will encourage more organisations to seek out and engage with Muslim communities, particularly those that are newly-established and not yet fully involved with service providers."

(CD/JM)