This procurement specification seeks to establish a, not for profit, Community Supermarket in Harlow. Priority areas for this procurement are based on the Essex County Council, Levelling-Up geographies, and Working Families priority areas, overlaid with the 2019 Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD).
It is important that any Community Supermarket is established with the support of local, public, voluntary and community sector partners as well as local-residents and service users.
The Community Supermarket model provides support for individuals who have experienced financial crisis, and who have been supported by Food Banks to regain some financial control. In addition, the model supports individuals and families who fluctuate above and below the line of financial security by providing a consistent point of support to avoid them falling into financial crisis.
Once established, the programme will form a local community asset with the funding from Essex County Council made available to seed fund the development and start-up costs.
DHSC has today launched a £10m Suicide Prevention VCSE Grant Fund for 2023/24 and 2024/25, to support suicide prevention activities delivered in England by non-profit organisations.
The application period is open until 1st October. Applications must be made online via the Find a Grant portal here unless exceptional circumstances apply.
Guidance can be found here, which provides full details of the objectives of the fund, the eligibility criteria, and details on the application process itself.
DHSC will also be holding Meet the Funder webinars for potential applicants, to answer any questions. To sign up, please could applicants email [email protected]
CARA is looking for an Advocacy Coordinator to join our team. The role will provide advocacy support to a caseload of clients, including support around housing, finances, health, domestic abuse and other issues. CARA’s advocacy service focuses primarily on meeting the needs of some of our most complex clients – victims and survivors who would be unable to access other advocacy services. The role will also involve supporting the wider CARA team in signposting other clients to external advocacy agencies, as appropriate and attendance at CARA groups to provide a drop-in advocacy surgery.
For a full job description and person specification, please click here.
The Mid and South Essex Sustainability and Anchor Teams are delighted to invite the VCSE sector to a series of workshops that will help you to understand and apply Social Value.
The hour-long virtual sessions are designed to;
Establish a common understanding of Social Value from its attribution as a `generally good thing’ to its application in procurement.
Use existing practice across partners to help frame the emergence of a Mid and South Essex Social Value approach that reflects the needs of health partners and aligns with and/or informs local authority practice
Use the information received to develop Next Steps in early 2024, so that action can be progressed to implementation from 1st April 2024.
Please see attached for more information , very happy for the invite to be cascaded widely
The East of England Cancer Alliances’ Patient Partnership Group would like to invite you to attend this online event.
The patient group have all experienced cancer themselves, or cared for someone with cancer, and are putting on a series of talks and information sessions designed to raise awareness and give people an opportunity to ask any questions of our expert speakers or experienced patients. We hope that you can join us. This is the first in a series of events which will be held every few months.
Cancer awareness, common signs, and symptoms
Tuesday 12 September 6-30 – 7.30pm.
Join us for this online event to learn more about the common signs and symptoms that could be a cause for concern or need further investigation. We will hear from a local GP and a member of the public about their experiences in spotting the symptoms of cancer.
Please email [email protected] to register a place and to be send the link to join the event
We encourage members of the public who are concerned about unusual changes in their body such as lumps or unexplained continuous pain, to report signs and symptoms to their GP practice as soon as possible.
Are you a visionary leader with a proven track record of driving organisation success? Do you possess exceptional strategic thinking and decision-making skills with a strong emphasis on Heading up Operations.
We are looking for an Executive Lead for Thriving Communities who will play a pivotal role in shaping the strategic direction of Community360, inspiring teams towards a common goal. Reporting directly to the CEO, you will influence and lead a team of Head of Programmes, fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation and achievement.
Thriving Communities is our portfolio that consists of a broad range of programmes and services to support individuals and communities to live their best lives. From My Social Prescription™ to Community Transport, Thriving Communities addresses an array of needs within communities across Colchester, Braintree and beyond. We do this by managing or contributing to community-based wellbeing projects. We partner with healthcare providers to deliver services and ensure they reach those most in need. We also work strategically to address issues, supporting people who may be at risk during the winter months. In addition, our infrastructure work allows us to advise community and voluntary groups how to become established and achieve their goals, also contributing to thriving communities. Our One Colchester Hub offers a safe and welcoming space for individuals to engage in activities and support, while allowing partners to collaborate and take action.
We’ve been at the front-line of the cost-of-living crisis, looking at the impacts on people and the effectiveness of interventions designed to help. Interventions have focused on both short and long term fixes, and ranged from direct support to measures to improve the overall economic picture.
But experts are sharply divided on where we should be focusing – are we using the right levers to tackle the crisis? At our September briefing our Chief Executive, Clare Moriarty and Chief Data Analyst, Tom MacInnes will look at our latest data. We’ll also hear from speakers coming at the problem from a range of perspectives.
On Friday 7 July 2023 around 1,000 delegates from across the Suffolk and North East Essex ICS attended the annual ICS ‘Can Do Health and Care’ Expo2023 at Wherstead Park near Ipswich. The event included more than 140 exhibitors across six exhibition zones as well as keynote presentations, workshops, demonstrations and discussions.
A key highlight of the day at Expo2023 was the official signing of the Suffolk and North East Essex ICS VCFSE Resilience Charter. The charter was signed in person by numerous VCFSE sector leaders alongside Will Pope and Ed Garratt on behalf of NHS Suffolk and North East Essex ICB, Cllr. Andrew Reid on behalf of Suffolk County Council and Lucy Wightman on behalf of Essex County Council.
The charter was originally drafted by VCFSE sector partners in 2021 and set out a number of commitments and principles for wider system partners to work to that was underpinned by an ethos of collaboration, sustainable funding, co-production and shared resources. Whilst the principles of the Charter were widely accepted by system partners, challenges with adopting the commitments were identified, largely owing to the complexity of the ICS system whereby commitments such as embedding co-production, reducing overlap, and removing unnecessary bureaucracy, whilst agreed in principle, in practice have been harder to achieve. So, to agree a Charter that the whole system agreed to and could be adopted by all partners across all sectors in the system, the Charter was revisited to refine and co-produce a new Charter that recognises the diversity of the VCFSE sector and will enable it to work with and be recognised as a key partner within the ICS.
Over 100 people from across the system contributed to the co-design of the revised Resilience Charter Principles, which included task and finish groups to explore five priority areas: Sustainable Funding, Co-Production, Quality and Monitoring, Resilience and Capacity and Trust and Culture. The groups helped to develop the eight new principles and made recommendations for the system to progress to ensure that the principles are embedded by all partners. The Charter and Principles were approved by the ICP Committee in June 2023.
Through Safer Essex, Essex County Council have launched a new online safety map for women and girls to use to highlight areas they feel safe or unsafe in Southend, Essex & Thurrock.
Anyone can use the map, but we particularly want to hear from women and girls over 13 years old as we know through research that 16% of women that took part felt unsafe in our towns and cities during the day and 47% felt unsafe at night.
The map can be accessed on a desktop computer, phone or tablet. Users can drop a pin to a specific location and write why they felt safe or unsafe there. Other users will be able to see this data too.
All of the data collected will be used by partners to inform their work going forward.
Funding for new projects that deliver services to help everyone in Essex to live a healthy life and achieve their full potential
Overview
The Public Health Accelerator Bids (PHAB) programme will fund new projects that help people in Essex to live a healthy life.
The £7.5 million grant programme will run for three years.
PHAB will make a difference to the lives of many vulnerable residents across Essex. The programme focuses on closing the health inequalities experienced in the county.
The programme consists of two grants:
small grants of between £500 and £15,000. Applications open on Monday 4 September 2023
major grants from £15,000 with no upper limit. Expressions of interest applications open on Tuesday 1 August 2023
Essex County Council reserve the right to cap the upper limit of funding dependent on availability to provide proportionate universalism at any time.