Healthwatch Essex are currently gathering lived experiences around menopause and perimenopause support/advice in west Essex. We are interested to hear from anyone who has input that they would be happy to share with us.
As part of this work, we would be very grateful if people could take a few minutes of their time to complete the attached simple survey. Responses are completely anonymous unless someone indicates that they would be interested in talking to one of our team in a little more depth about their experiences, and then their details will be used solely for the purpose of making contact to discuss.
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. Round two of the expressions of interest opens on Monday 6 November 2023 and closes on Friday 1 December 2023.
Essex County Council reserve the right to cap the upper limit of funding dependent on availability to provide proportionate universalism at any time.
The High Sheriff of Essex, Charles Bishop, is encouraging charities and voluntary groups to apply for funding from the High Sheriffs’ Fund to support their work tackling crime and community safety.
Grants of up to £5,000 are available to support organisations working across Essex, Southend and Thurrock for a wide range of work and projects. These include helping victims of crime, working with young people and informing them about the dangers of drugs, alcohol, gangs and anti-social behaviour, and initiatives that contribute to keeping elderly residents safe in their homes and the wider community.
Previously supported projects included self-defence training for young women, sessions that increase awareness of modern slavery, a programme helping people experiencing homelessness to find accommodation and drama performances in schools that teach students about the dangers of alcohol misuse.
The independent charitable trust, Essex Community Foundation (ECF) has managed the High Sheriffs’ Fund since 1997 and since then, grants totalling £700,000 have been given to a wide range of charities. In addition, successive High Sheriffs who have fundraised during their year of office, combined with donations made by Essex Police from the Proceeds of Crime Matched Funding Scheme, have helped to grow the endowed High Sheriffs’ Fund which provides an annual programme of grants.
Charles has already visited many charities and voluntary groups across the county, meeting volunteers and seeing first-hand the difference these organisations are making.
He said: “It is a privilege to recognise the important work of volunteers and local charities that are making such a difference in our communities. Providing support from the High Sheriffs’ Fund is just one way of showing thanks and appreciation, so I very much encourage groups to apply for funding to support their vital work.”
Andy Payne Worpole, Head of Programmes at ECF, said: “We are delighted to work with successive High Sheriffs to ensure the money they raise tackles important issues at a local level. We also have other charitable funds that can support community safety initiatives so please call our dedicated grants team who will give you support and guidance.”
The deadline for applications is 10 November. Click here to apply or call the grants team on 01245 355947.
Welcome to the London Stansted Airport Community Fund Application Portal. From here you will be able to register your organisation and apply for one of our grants.
Organisations can apply for a Community Grant of up to £5,000 or apply for our Flagship Award of up to £50,000
Who can apply?
Applications will be welcomed from community or other not for profit groups, charities, Town Councils and Parish Councils. Grants will not be available to organisations which should be entitled to statutory core funding in respect of the project or to individuals.
What will you fund?
We are keen to support many aspects of community life and give grant support to many diverse parts of the community.
We will consider applications for capital projects which protect and enhance the social, economic and environmental well-being of the community.
Examples of projects which we are keen to fund are:
• Projects which are of special help to specific social groups. For example, voluntary youth groups (scouts, guides, youth clubs), the elderly or disabled.
• Projects which support community life in general such as improvements to facilities such as village halls.
• Infrastructure which supports community use.
• Projects that support community drama, art, music and sporting/leisure activities.
• Environmental and conservation schemes that support access to the countryside / outdoors.
Where will you fund projects?
Grants will only be awarded to projects that are operated, or to be operated, by applicants who are located, or which operate predominately, within our Area of Benefit.
What is the Area of Benefit?
The Area of Benefit is a 10-mile radius of the airport with extensions to reflect areas directly affected by operations at London Stansted Airport.
Will there be more opportunities to apply for a grant?
Yes, please do not worry if you do not have a project which is eligible for funding at the moment. London Stansted Airport has committed £150,000 per year to this fund for the next 10 years. There will be plenty of opportunities to apply for funding in the very near future.
The Government’s Multiply programme is focused on raising participation in learning and attainment in Maths for adults aged 19 and over.
ECC has submitted an investment plan seeking the maximum allocation of £7.9m, which is the largest of any county in England. Allocation of fund for 2022/23 has been awarded.
This will help address the crucial skills gaps in Essex, which ranked 114 out of 151 local authorities in England – the 38th lowest – in terms of the proportion of 16-64 year olds with an NVQ3 or above.
As a result, Essex has secured the fifth largest funding allocation in the country and the largest allocation for a single local authority.
Essex Multiply Project
Multiply aims to raise participation in learning and attainment in Maths up to NVQ2 for adults aged 19 and over. Failure to attain this level of Maths is often a barrier to progressions to higher learning and in work. Attainment at Entry Level 3 can even bar access into technical apprenticeships at NVQ2. The Multiply scheme will go beyond traditional maths and will also focus on everyday numeracy skills to help adults with household budgeting, debt management, bargain hunting, and with their children’s homework, etc.
The project aims to offer short courses and support that will help adults to cope with the cost of living, to help their children with their schoolwork, to access employment, and to progress in work. The project aims to whet Essex adults’ appetite for learning through short practical courses that offer maths tools that are useful to residents and families in their everyday lives.
The Government has confirmed the initial grant of £2.4m to ECC to deliver 3,450 opportunities by March 2023. By March 2025, 14,200 residents will participate in education/training: supporting businesses to upskill their workforces, helping parents to support their children’s learning and to offer adults more effective tools with which to manage their money better.
Multiply will support ECC’s objectives as set out in the Everyone’s Essex strategy to support Good Jobs and Future Growth by increasing the skills of Essex residents and workers. It will also support ECCs Levelling Up Essex White Paper which aims to level up priority places and disadvantaged cohorts across Essex. Multiply will also deliver bespoke modules to meet the skills needs of employers in sectors which are set to grow as set out in our Sector Development Strategy and those that are struggling with skills shortages.
The closing date for this funding is Friday 20th October 2023. Your project can be up to £10,000 in value and will run for 6 months.
Join us for our next cost-of-living data briefing on 10 October, 11am – 12pm. This event will be hosted virtually during the Labour Party Conference. Clare Moriarty, our Chief Executive, and Tom MacInnes, our Data Analyst will be speaking live from Citizens Advice Liverpool. Panellists will be announced soon.
Our September event debated which policy levers we need to use to tackle the cost-of-living crisis. This event will develop this discussion to talk about how we might pull them, and how we conduct effective policy making.
Half of the people coming to us in debt have a negative budget (spending more on essentials than they have coming in) and we’re supporting more and more people who haven’t come to us before, like mortgage holders and those in full time employment. We’re also helping record numbers of people access food banks. Policy changes and Government support have helped bring these numbers down slightly, but they’re still alarmingly high. So what’s the answer and how do we fix it?
The Essex Family-Friendly Employers Charter is a set of minimum principles that employers in Essex should meet to be deemed family-friendly.
Not all employers can offer flexible working. However, family-friendly policies are about more than being able to work from home.
The charter sets out how employers can help parents and carers manage their work and caring commitments.
By signing up to the charter, employers agree to adopt family-friendly policies.
Family-friendly strategy and culture
To foster a family-friendly strategy and culture, employers should:
promote a positive culture and attitude to different ways of working
support managers and employees to talk about different working arrangements
during induction, provide information about the opportunities and process to make a flexible working request
make information around family-friendly practices and workplace benefits for families easy to access
make roles open to part-time and flexi-time where possible, including senior positions
where possible, provide support for employees such as mentoring, resilience and aspiration building and peer support networks
provide part-time staff with equal access to training, development and opportunities to progress
Flexible working
In line with the employers’ needs, employers should aim to:
offer a range of flexible working options such as flexible working hours, working from outside the main office, condensed hours, extended lunch breaks and acceptable breaks for family commitments
advertise jobs as flexible (where flexible working options are possible)
start from a position of “yes” when it comes to flexible working requests
provide advance notice of shift patterns
Annual leave and supporting parents outside of term time
To help employees manage work and caring commitments, employers should:
provide a range of leave options to support parents such as dependent leave, unpaid leave, emergency care leave and options to buy extra leave
ensure information about leave options to meet family commitments is easy to access
consider who may need leave, flexible hours or flexible workplaces during holidays for childcare purposes
The rollout of Essex Frontline – your FREE digital referral and signposting tool – across Mid and South Essex is powering ahead! New referrals from new services are being made and received daily, helping many more people receive support.
We’re still meeting lots of lovely people from brilliant services at our drop-in sessions to learn all about Essex Frontline and what it can offer your service and service users. Here’s the upcoming drop-in dates for September!
So what do people think about Frontline? We’ve got users who have been using Frontline for many years:
“Frontline is the first place I go to if I’m looking for any support for my clients. I have been using the portal for 7 years – it’s a brilliant resource – it certainly makes my job easier!”
Social prescriber, West Essex.
And users who have only been with us for a few weeks:
“I have been using Frontline for the last few weeks as a mental health pharmacist and it is fantastic! I no longer have to send single referrals to our social prescribers because I can do it quite quickly on Frontline which saves a lot of time rather than referring or googling for different services”
Clinical Mental Health Pharmacist, Broxbourne.
We want to see truly local support on Essex Frontline, so if you provide a local health/ wellbeing service in Mid, South or West Essex, please get in touch. Being on the platform gives your service great visibility and makes your referral life so much easier.
If you’re already on Frontline but think we’re missing a service that people desperately need, please tell us!
The Frontline admin team can help set up your service and make the process super simple. So why not come along to a drop-in and see for yourself how Frontline can benefit your service and users?
Applications open Sept 4th 2023. Close 6th Oct 2023
We will let you know if you qualify for the interview round by 6th Nov 2023.
If you haven’t heard anything by 6th Nov, unfortunately your application was unsuccessful on this occasion but good luck with your project.
Interviews will be held on zoom on 30th Nov 2023 for successful applicants
The winner will be announced on 5th Jan 24
Objectives and outcomes
To build happy, strong, resilient communities by supporting grassroots, not-for-profit projects that enable sustainable outcomes in:
Mental health Wellbeing & happiness
Inclusion
Learning and skills development
The fund is intended to help new groups and activities, to be successful. Applicants will need to indicate how the activity/group can become self-sustaining or able to attract funding from other sources in the longer term.
The fund will award £5,000 twice a year – allowing up to two different projects/ charities or CIC’s per year to apply. You cannot re-apply if you have won funding from the Happiness fund in the last 24 months