News

This is where we’ll post third sector news and important updates that are useful for your organisation.

Volunteer forum – Rainbow Services Harlow

Join Rainbow Services for the Voluntary Sector Forum on Thursday 15th June, 10am-12noon at Harlow Study Centre, Netteswellbury Farm, CM18 6BW.

They will be joined by Anne Wafula-Strike as their speaker for this event.  RSVP to info@rainbowservices.org.uk or call 01279 308150.

Author: Alliance Admin
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Categories: News

Essex Community Foundation Grants

Apply for support

Essex Community Foundation want to make it easy for you to access the funding that they have available. If your charity, voluntary or community organisation is based or working in Essex and needs financial support, they may be able to help.
You can tell them what you need support for at any time, as they accept applications throughout the year, and their team will try to find the funds you need.

IS MY ORGANISATION ELIGIBLE FOR SUPPORT?

Complete their quick eligibility quiz to see if they can support your work. They also encourage you to read our Help and Guidance information.
They would love to hear from you and discuss your ideas. You can get in touch in whatever way suits you best:

Author: Alliance Admin
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Categories: News

Essex Frontline – referral platform

Your FREE digital referral and signposting platform

  • Do you get frustrated that people don’t know about your service?
  • Do you wish other service providers could find your offer more easily?
  • Would you like more referrals into your service?

Great news! In response to these challenges (and more) the Mid and South Essex ICB has now funded the rollout of this digital referral and signposting platform after Essex Frontline’s proven success across West Essex over many years. 

Designed to promote easier – and more effective – partnership working, Frontline provides an up-to-date library of local health and wellbeing support AND enables direct – and secure – referrals into services. It’s a great platform for your service to be visible to all and you can track any referrals in/out of your service.

In addition, Frontline captures really useful data for your service when you have to report into commissioners or funders.

Key information:

  • Be visible – and more accessible – to other community services and the public
  • Make referrals, receive referrals, or simply signpost… or all three!
  • Completely free to use
  • Find local up-to-date information on other services – easily
  • A free handy app for staff on the move
  • Evidences collaboration across different services.

Find us HERE

If you’d like to add your service or want to know more, contact our friendly Frontline team at info@frontlinereferrals.org.uk or call 01799 618855.

PLUS

You are warmly invited to attend any of our online drop-in sessions that will be held over the first 10 days of June. We will show you what Frontline does and why hundreds of services in West Essex already love the platform. We look forward to seeing you there!

Tues 30 May @ 1pm – Click here to join the meeting

Thur 1 June @ 12pm – Click here to join the meeting

Fri 2 June @ 10.30am – Click here to join the meeting

Mon 5 June @ 1.30pm – Click here to join the meeting

Tues 6 June @ 9.30am – Click here to join the meeting

Thurs 8 June @ 12pm – Click here to join the meeting

Fri 9 June @ 11.30am – Click here to join the meeting

Author: Alliance Admin
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Categories: News

£2 bus fare cap – Has been extended

A list of bus companies and bus routes included in the £2 bus fare cap scheme.

This guidance lists the:

  • bus companies that are taking part in the £2 bus fare cap scheme
  • bus routes that are included in the £2 fare cap
  • bus routes that are not included in the £2 fare cap

The £2 bus fare cap will run until 31 October 2023.

Some of the routes covered by the cap may change on 1 July 2023. Check this page for updates.

View the full list here. 

Author: Alliance Admin
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Categories: News

Tackling the Stigma: Sky Sports documentary investigates football’s issues with mental health

Watch ‘Tackling the Stigma’ at 10.30pm on Thursday May 18 on Sky Sports Premier League and Sky Sports Football, and also On Demand.

Sky Sports has produced a documentary, Tackling the Stigma, in support of Mental Health Awareness Week 2023.

The three-part, hour-long deep dive, narrated by Martin Tyler, investigates football’s issues with mental health, exploring what clubs and players are doing to change the narrative around men’s mental health.

In a series of interviews conducted by Patrick Davidson, the first of their kind by top level footballers, the documentary highlights how far the industry has changed in the last decade.

Speaking in depth with current Premier League players Harry Kane, Ben Chilwell and Jordan Pickford, we discover how they manage their wellbeing. We also hear from former players Lee Hendrie and Kieron Dyer on how they suffered during their careers, with little treatment or support available.

Read more here. 

 

Author: Alliance Admin
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Sports England – Small Grants Programme

Our Small Grants Programme seeks to develop opportunities for communities to get more people physically active and we’ll support new projects through providing National Lottery funding of between £300 and £15,000.

About the fund

We want to support projects that bring communities together and provide sport and physical activities for people who may be less physically active.

We also particularly want to support projects focusing on environmental sustainability.

We believe that communities that work together and share resources provide a stronger and more sustainable impact.

Therefore, we want applications from projects that demonstrate how they connect with their communities, make best use of the existing skills and assets in an area, and will provide the biggest possible impact to those who need it most.

We also want projects to show how they’ve sought to reduce their impact on the environment through the goods and services they use to deliver the activity.

Please be aware that we always have more applications than we’re able to fund, so our priority is to support projects working with people in disadvantaged communities.

See our section on priorities below for more information.

Key information

  • Awards of £300-£15,000 are available to not-for-profit organisations.
  • Multiple applications can be submitted, but organisations can only have awards of up to £15,000 in any 12-month period.
  • Awards are to help inactive and less active people become more active.
  • Our priority is to support projects working with people living in areas of disadvantage as defined by the Indices of Multiple Deprivation areas 1 to 3.
  • Applications should explain why there’s a need for the project and how end users have been involved in developing the project.
  • Applications should consider how the project adds value to services currently available in your local community, and work collaboratively with other groups to maximise the impact of the project.
  • The closing date for applications is 30 June 2023.

Apply here. 

 

Author: Alliance Admin
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Categories: News

Perpetrator Intervention Service

Published date: 17 May 2023

Open early engagement – This means that a procurement idea is currently active, it is in the early stage of development and judging interest from potential suppliers.

Contract summary

Industry

  • Other community, social and personal services – 98000000

Location of contract

South East

Procurement reference

CF-0003400D4K000001WteKUAS

Published date

17 May 2023

Closing date

26 May 2023

Contract type

Service contract

Contract is suitable for SMEs?

Yes

Contract is suitable for VCSEs?

Yes

Description

The Essex Police and Fire and Crime Commissioner will be commissioning a range of services to support and disrupt perpetrators to change their behaviour and break the cycle of domestic abuse.

The Commissioner is looking for a number of partners to work with to develop opportunities and support to enable perpetrators to change their behaviour.

An initial market engagement via Teams is being held on 26 May 2023 and to register for this event please.

visit https://7force.force.com/ProSpend__eSourcing_Community_Registration?locale=uk

If you are already registered on the Portal, you can login here: https://7force.force.com/login

Author: Alliance Admin
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Basildon Funding Clinic

Basildon Borough Council, Active Essex and Basildon, Billericay and Wickford CVS are working in partnership to deliver funding clinics for not-for-profit organisations based in the Basildon Borough. These clinics are designed to provide support with writing funding applications.

The first Funding Clinic will be held in the Gloucester Park Room, Floor 1 at The Basildon Centre, St. Martin’s Square on Tuesday 30th May. To register your attendance, please complete the form below and select a timeslot.

Sign up here.

Author: Alliance Admin
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Collaborative working between local medical centres and Community360 sees dementia café going from strength to strength

We also offer a feedback box so we can gather quantitative and qualitative
feedback.” It has not all been plain sailing though for the café. The Abbey Field dementia café used to run at Foxburrow Grange care home pre-covid, which is opposite the Abbey Field medical centre. After the pandemic, the care home unfortunately could not house the café, so the surgery had to find another venue, the C3 Centre, just next to the surgery. When it reopened though, numbers were poor.
Helen explained: “Whilst on a Dementia Friendly Community (DFC) call, Lisa Russell, one of the assistant practice managers at Abbey Field medical centre, was sharing this experience, when another DFC member organisation, Ambrose Avenue surgery, represented by Tara Jones and she said that they wanted to start a café. So, the two decided that it made more sense to run a joint café and that’s how it all started! Tara, Lisa and I met and thought about activities that we could run at the café – we started reaching out to organisations to ask if they would come along and run their activities for free. Then Ellie Gibbons from Ardleigh surgery got involved too as Ambrose and Ardleigh are in the same Primary Care Network (PCN). This was fantastic as we now had three medical centres behind the project.
Tara Jones, Lisa Russell and Ellie Gibbons are the driving force behind the café. They reached out directly to people on their dementia registers to let them know about the café. When it relaunched in October we had over 30 people walk through the door, now we are up to 56, which is an amazing achievement. Participants love coming to the café, it’s a relaxed atmosphere and the three surgeries are working well together.” “When I started in my role at Ambrose Avenue Group Practice as the Care Coordinator it was clear from the start that something was needed to support our dementia patients.” Said Tara Jones. “I looked at possible venues and tried to get things off the ground on my own, but this was very difficult if not bordering on the
impossible. When I started representing the practice at the DFC meetings it was raised that Abbey fields Medical Centre were having trouble restarting their dementia café post covid.
A new care coordinator Ellie Gibbons had just started at Ardleigh Surgery, and she was also very motivated to offer a dementia café for her dementia patients. The DFC brought us together through Helen Clegg at Community360 and we agreed to try a collaboration. It didn’t matter that we were surgeries from different PCNs we were all just wanting the same thing.” She added: “The café works so well as a collaboration; we all have different skills sets and this also spreads the load of the work needed to keep it running. It has gone from strength to strength through the continued communication between us all. We see patients, carers and family return month after month and can see them starting to build relationships and friendships with others.
This also means that they are supporting each other. Those that attend comment that they no longer feel alone that they know they have support and that they can come to the dementia café for fun, support, laughter, tea and biscuits, games, activities and access to two care coordinators, an assistant practice manager and the dementia lead from community360.
There is also usually someone else on hand from a carer’s organisation or The Alzheimer’s Society. I believe that the collaboration has been the key to the success of the dementia café, and I very much hope that it will continue to support those who are vulnerable and learning to live with dementia.” Ellie Gibbons is Care Coordinator at Ardleigh Surgery and has also been
instrumental is the success of the café. “When I joined Ardleigh Surgery it was one of our main objectives to raise awareness of dementia. We began this by developing the surgery to become dementia friendly with the support of the DFC & Alzheimer’s Society. It was clear that our patients needed further support outside of appointments and within the community. Ardleigh Surgery then joined working in collaboration with Ambrose Avenue Group Practice, Abbey Field Medical Centre and Community360 at the dementia café to provide this much need service for our patients. We are thankful for the enthusiasm and kind feedback we receive from those that attend, and it is lovely to be able to see so many people come together to offer support, receive the help they may need and to see so many smiles.”
Lisa Russell, Assistant Practice Manager at Abbey Field Medical Centre, said: “The staff at Abbey Field Medical Centre have been working towards being a dementia friendly practice for many years now and were always keen to continue and improve.
Working together with Tara, Eloise and Helen has enabled us to utilise all of our contacts and resources and bring so much more to the café. The passion that we all have in bringing people living with dementia together in a safe and understanding environment is shared by us all. I feel a real sense of fulfilment after each café and truly believe that we make a difference to people’s lives. Through general conversations and engagement, we are able to read between the lines and signpost to a multitude of different help and support services that they would have otherwise not realised were available. Ultimately the true benefit of the café is seeing the friendships and support groups that are made, people realising and understanding that they are not alone and that there are many others in their situation. Seeing someone walk in for their first time attending the café looking a little unsure, apprehensive and lost, and being brave enough to admit their concerns and fears with a stranger, to then seeing the same person a few months down the line, offering support and advice to others, often with a smile on their face, will always be
priceless.”
The café welcomes all (including caregivers, family & friends) and promotes that you’re able to live well with dementia. The Abbey Field dementia café takes place the second Thursday of each month at the C3 Centre, Ypres Road, Colchester CO2 7FD, next to the Abbey Field Medical Centre and runs from 10:30 am to 12 noon. Parking spaces available. For further information please contact Ardleigh Surgery – 01206-230224
​Abbey Field Medical Centre – 01206-517100
Ambrose Avenue Group Practice – 01206-549444
Community360 – 01206-505250
Community360 will also be hosting a Health Day on Friday 19th May from 11am -2pm at the One Colchester Hub, Long Wyre Street, where the public can find out more about local dementia services.

Author: Alliance Admin
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Categories: News

Screwfix Foundation Applications now open

The Screwfix Foundation has re-opened for applications from charities and not for profit organisations for projects that will fix, repair, maintain and improve the properties and community facilities of those in need by reason of financial hardship, sickness, disability, distress or other disadvantage throughout the UK.
Grants in the region of £5,000 are available for all kinds of projects, from repairing buildings and improving facilities in deprived areas, to decorating the homes of people living with sickness and disabilities.
Applications are reviewed on a quarterly basis. The next closing date for applications is the 10th August 2023.https://www.screwfix.com/help/screwfixfoundation

Author: Alliance Admin
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Categories: News