Essex Is United is a collaboration between Essex County Council, The Essex Public Health Team, the local NHS, and local Facebook groups.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING THE USE OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
Any information submitted using this form will be stored by Essex County Council and only accessed by Essex County Council and those working on their behalf in accordance with their current GDPR and data protection policies. It may be shared with Provide, an organisation that works alongside Essex County Council, and other approved partners solely for the purposes of making sure that respondents are connected directly with members of their local community who are organising volunteering efforts.
A Community Fridge is a space that brings people together to eat, connect, learn new skills and reduce food waste. It is a site where local people can share food, this includes surplus from supermarkets, local food businesses, producers, households and gardens. Fridges are run by community groups in shared spaces such as schools, community centres and shops, their main purpose is saving fresh food from going to waste.
The Community Fridge Network is coordinated by Hubbub and it connects fridges across the UK. It is a support network for groups running fridges to share knowledge and skills and to ask questions. The Network offers free guidance on how to set up your own fridge and provides comprehensive support, design assets, a knowledge sharing forum, health and safety templates and discounted fridges and freezers!
There are currently over 300 fridges across the UK and counting, Hubbub have partnered with Co-op to fund 500 fridges by the end of 2023.
Read on to find out more about setting up your own fridge, joining the network or finding a fridge in your local area.
Click the links below to find the section you need.
Where is a fridge near me? See our interactive map to find your local fridge opening times and what it offers
How do I set up a fridge?Step-by-step guidance for starting a Fridge in your area. Plus, you can register for funding
A Community Fridge can be accessed by anyone locally who wants to share food, volunteer or get involved with some of the other amazing activities the group have to offer. We have created some guidance on what you can and cannot share with the fridge (for health and safety reasons) so make sure to check in advance before you visit.
Use our fridge map to find your nearest Community Fridge and get involved!
How do I set up a fridge?
Click here to download our How To guide which shows you how to start your fridge from scratch.
We are currently accepting applications from groups to receive grant funding to set up a fridge. Find more information and submit your application here: Application Form for Grant Funding
Becoming a member gives you access to all our support and resources, signs you up to our quarterly newsletter and connects you with other likeminded groups in our network.
Try and answer every question possible and make sure that you will be able to provide the documentation and assurances asked for in time for your launch. Members are required to register their Community Fridge as a Food Business with their local authority. Following from this you will have had an inspection from an Environmental Health Officer and receive a food hygiene rating for the fridge.
Once the online form is complete you will be sent an email with the information on the next steps and a resource pack that includes a list of supporting retailers you can contact for food donations. We will also add you to our mailing list so you’ll receive newsletters and updates from us.
You can also join our Facebook Group here and start chatting with other Community Fridge groups across the UK.
How can I share food?
Community Fridges are open to everyone, and anyone is welcome to share food.
I’m an individual
Use the map above to find and get in touch with your local fridge and offer your support.
I’m an organisation
We are proud to work with some fantastic partners who play a vital role in reducing food waste and sharing food, and we’re keen to develop more local connections with food growers, manufacturers and retailers who, by sharing quality excess food, not only reduce wasted food and disposal costs, but directly support their local community. If that sounds like something you’re interested in, get in touch with the team at [email protected] to discuss how we can work together.
Rules on food donation
Read our rules on food sharing by clickingon the links below
In 2021, we estimate the Community Fridge Network redistributed around 3,150 tonnes of surplus food (that’s the same as 7.5 million meals!*) and we welcomed over 1 million visits from 250,000 visitors
With each fridge sharing an average of 2.1 tonnes of food per month, the collective impact of the Community Fridge Network is huge. What’s more important though, are the stories that we hear from communities. The fridges bring people together, address social isolation and provide people with the opportunity to access healthy food, try something new and save money.
In a nutshell, a fridge is often so much more than a fridge. As well as introducing you to new people and foods, Community Fridges host all kinds of activities such as cooking workshops, food growing, clothes swaps… you name it.
The Essex Shed Network (ESN) are looking for an enthusiastic individual who is interested in developing this exciting project further to help support men in Essex to be more connected with their communities.
The purpose of the Development Officer is to work with communities, individuals and organisations to increase the number of Men in Shed projects, improve the sustainability of existing sheds and achieve outcomes for individual shedders around improved health and mental health. This role will include supporting individuals with finding and preparing premises, looking for and applying for funding, developing policies, advising on Health & Safety, risk assessments and to keep accurate records.
ESN are looking for a highly motivated individual who is flexible, approachable, able to manage their own workload and have excellent interpersonal skills to drive this project forward.
Small, friendly team
Offices set in a rural location (Essex) – some work from home or in the community settings/locations across Essex
Up to £25,000. Dependent upon experience
Fixed term contract – end of August 2023
37.5 hours per week – Flexible, remote or hybrid home/office model may be applied
All applicants MUST complete a UCAN application form (No CV’s will be accepted).
For a full job description & application form please email [email protected]
This role will be subject to 2 acceptable references.
Closing date for applications: 27th September 2022 at 5pm.
Are you, or someone you care for, under 25? Have they tried to access GP services in West Essex? If so we would like to hear from you.
West Essex primary care has, since 1st July, come under the responsibility of a new NHS organisation, the Integrated Care System.
They have asked us to explore how they can make improvements. What’s working well and what can be improved? Where are the blockages in the system and how can they be opened? How can every child and young person get timely and effective access to quality care and support?
Your experience of the system can give us vital, real life insight – and can help make a difference!
Please take just a few minutes to complete our survey today. Survey responses are completely anonymous, but if you wish to tell us more about your experience, you can give your contact details at the end.
The London Marathon Charitable Trust (LMCT) has provided a grant of £1 million to expand the Find Your Active small grants programme, scale up Essex Pedal Power, and increase active travel opportunities in our schools and communities.
The RideLondon-Essex cycling event, which took place in May 2022 in conjunction with Essex County Council, has led to a new funding partnership between Active Essex and LMCT to invest £1 million to inspire more people to be active across the county. Active Essex is the Active Partnership for the county and hosted by Essex County Council.
LMCT is the parent charity of London Marathon Events (LME), the organisers of RideLondon. All surplus from events organised by LME is gifted to LMCT, who in turn provide grants to projects that inspire activity.
As part of Active Essex’s successful Find Your Active campaign, LMCT is powering a programme to support Essex-wide projects that help residents lead active and healthy lives. Organisations, groups and instructors will be able to apply for funds of up to £3,000 to help residents find the activity that’s right for them, via the Active Essex website as of today. * In light of the growing cost-of-living crisis, we’re offering this funding to clubs and groups who can help get residents to be active in these challenging times and welcome organisations to inform us of the support they need.
In order to capture the county’s love for cycling, The Active Essex Foundation will also be offering support to inclusive cycling initiatives along the RideLondon route, as well as skate jam opportunities for young people. Through events and cycling workshops, the Foundation will strengthen communities, enhancing local assets and providing opportunities for young people who are at risk, to try new activities and lead healthier, happier, more positive lives.
Schools will be encouraged to apply for the Essex School Active Travel Grant funding, to help promote healthier active travel methods for both pupils and families. Schools will be able to utilise the funding to start or expand their School Active Travel Plan and help overcome any existing barriers currently preventing communities to travel actively to school. **
Building upon established active travel initiatives in Essex, the £1 million funding will also help to expand Essex Pedal Power; a community-based cycling initiative that has been piloted in Clacton and Jaywick Sands, where eligible residents can apply for a free bike, with the aim of making cycling more accessible for everyone. New Essex Pedal Power programmes are being planned for Colchester, Basildon and Harwich.
Catherine Anderson, Executive Director at The London Marathon Charitable Trust, said: “It’s great to have Essex as a new core funding area for us, thanks to the partnership between RideLondon and Essex County Council, and to have the opportunity to inspire activity in communities right across the county.
“We’re proud to be working with Active Essex and The Active Essex Foundation to fund initiatives that will promote health and wellbeing – supporting more people to find an activity that’s right for them and building activity into their daily lives. We can’t wait to see the impact our partnership will have over the next year in helping communities across the county to be more active.”
Cllr Lee Scott, Cabinet Member for Highways Maintenance and Sustainable Transport added: “It’s great to see how the inaugural event of RideLondon coming to Essex is now having a tremendous benefit on Essex residents. It is my hope that this funding will have an impact on activity levels across the county and help provide further opportunities in creating sustainable active travel.”
* To read the criteria and to apply to the Find Your Active grant, click here.
** To apply for the Schools Active Travel Grant, click here.
*** To find out more about Essex Pedal Power, click here.
Essex Violence and Vulnerability Unit have launched their Community Grants fund for 2022 – 2024.
As a partnership, our goal is to reduce serious violence, the harm it causes, and to safeguard those at risk, specifically relating to county lines, gangs and knife crime.
Local organisations do some amazing work that addresses these issues and the grant fund is designed to support this work.
The 2022-2024 grant round is available to local, ’not for profit’, voluntary or community clubs or organisations based in Essex, Southend and Thurrock.
Groups can apply for up to £20,000 to deliver support and interventions for children, young people, young adults and families. Projects can run from April 2023 to 31 March 2024
Projects must demonstrate how they have a positive impact on issues relating to crime and anti-social behaviour and violence and vulnerability. This may include early intervention work, gang & ‘county lines’, and child criminal exploitation projects.
A spokesperson for the Violence and Vulnerability Partnership said: “This community fund unlocks funding for projects who are doing specific, measurable work with young people and their families across Essex. Last year we funded some amazing projects ranging from using football as a diversionary activity from crime, coaching for young people at risk of serious violence, the provision of youth clubs and wilderness therapy for young people needing an outlet or safe space, and community activity days for disadvantaged communities. Do take the time to see if your organisation meets the criteria as we are keen to support as many projects as we can.”
We are really interested in projects that are meeting needs as highlighted by young people and local residents in our Listening Project 2021-2022.
Some examples of need in the report are: safe spaces for young people to try affordable, inclusive activities; opportunities to learn life skills; support for victims of youth violence; drug education in informal settings.
All applications must demonstrate how their project enables children & young people to make positive choices that keep them safe; raise self-esteem and confidence; build resilience; improve emotional and physical health and mental wellbeing and have a letter of support from the local Community Safety Partnership.
Projects funded in the last grant round included therapeutic services for children and young people, coaching and mentoring opportunities, community activities, detached youth work, sporting activities, wilderness therapy and specialist counselling.
More information including T&C’s, further details and how to apply can be found at ecvys.org.uk
The time of zero inflation is over and the world is seeing increasing costs and interest rates, so how do you manage this as a charity? Find out here.
As Bob Dylan once sang “The times they are a changin’ ” and with another interest rate rise on the horizon, it seems like an appropriate time to look once again at the subject of forecasting and finance.
Inflation is increasing rapidly, whatever method you use, and this means that charities will have to think about how they forecast both from a strategic point of view and from a practical standpoint.
So in this post, I wanted to give you a brief look at the things I am considering with the charities I work with and to give you some practical steps to take.
1. Interesting inflation
I’m really old. So much so that my first day of work was in July 1979. Interest rates at that time were 14% and inflation was 13.42%.
You may be like me and remember the heady days of July 1982, when we had 8 interest rate changes in a month!
Far from being unusual, times when interest and inflation rates rapidly change are the norm. Indeed, the last five years have been a relatively quiet time in terms of interest and inflation rates, with both being historically low and rarely changing.
So if you’ve only just come into the world of finance, then turbulent times might be a bit of a surprise, and knowing how to deal with them could be a bit of a mystery.
2. Don’t panic!
So the first thing to say is that you should know what is going on, but you shouldn’t panic.
We’ve lived through these types of times before and we’ll get through them this time around. But we need to take some simple measures to make sure that we have a clear sight of what is important and so that we don’t miss out on opportunities.
3. What’s going to change?
When things are moving quickly, it is tempting to think that you are standing on shifting sands and trying to hit a moving target (sorry for the mixed metaphor).
But probably the first place I start is to understand what can move, what can’t and what is in the middle.
For example, you may have an office that is rented on a long-term lease. Your payments will be set by the lease terms and can’t be changed until the next review date, so you know you don’t need to worry about them until then.
My first port of call when I am forecasting is to build in all the things I know will not change and then forget about them.
4. Embracing change
Then you have the things that you know are going to change. A good example of this at the moment is fuel prices. I know they are going to change, so what I will do is look to understand whether this matters.
One charity I work with doesn’t have any vehicles and only pays a small amount of mileage to one person. So the fact that fuel prices are changing is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. In this case, I will build in a forecast based on last year’s numbers and accept I am going to be wrong, but that it won’t matter too much.
Another charity I work with has carers that visit clients in their homes and so they pay a lot of mileage to many people, so fuel prices are important and in this case I know I need to do a special forecast just for these.
CARA (Centre for Action on Rape and Abuse) and ICENA are very proud to present a new series ofanimated videos to support professionals working with children and young people to understand the impacts of sexual violence. The animations, Understanding Young People’s Experiences of Sexual Harm: Supporting Students were created in collaboration with young survivors in Essex.
There are five 90 second animations available for use. They cover the following topics:
“They just fob it off.” Preventing Sexual Harm in Schools
“It’s all about paperwork and box ticking.” Responding to Disclosures of Sexual Violence
“I felt like a burden.” Providing Support After Sexual Violence
“I lost all my friends.” The Impact of Sexual Violence on Peer Groups
From Disclosure to Closure: Supporting Young Survivors Throughout Their Journey
In addition, a set of supporting resources is available for Designated Safeguarding Leads and Senior Leaders to use during INSET and continuing professional development sessions with all staff.
The resources are:
Understanding Young People’s Experiences of Sexual HarmPowerPoint and Facilitator’s Guide for use in training which guides participants through the main points of each animation and asks them to consider their own role in supporting young survivors of sexual violence
Understanding Young People’s Experiences of Sexual Harmhandout which gives an overview of the animations’ content and provides links to each animation
Student Experience Scenarios, available as a PowerPoint or a handout, which summarise the student experiences presented in each of the animations.
Please share these materials with colleagues or anyone who may find them useful, or through social media.
The animated videos and supporting resources will be shared with Essex schools at Essex County Council Safeguarding Forums in November 2022 and will be included in the Essex County Council guidance on harmful sexual behaviour.
We are aware that good work is already happening in many education settings to support young survivors and prevent sexual harm, and we hope these training materials will help support schools, teachers and other professionals in developing best practice.
Suicide is the leading cause of death in men and women aged under 45 in England. Suicide is a preventable death. Suicide is indiscriminate and can touch any of us.
Our Suicide Awareness Hub is here to offer training, support and education on what we can do. Suicide is everyone business and therefore as a society we can do our best to provide comfort and support to people who are feeling suicidal.
So what do we do?
The Hub will give you the skills and confidence to be an informed friend for someone who is at risk of ending a short term problem with a long term solution.
We have a FREE workshop consisting of two 2 hour sessions (virtually for now). These cover:
About suicidal feelings
Risk factors
Why suicide
Myths
How to help
On completion of the 2 workshops you will receive continued online follow up support sessions:
Informal (a chance to offload)
Formal 1:1 support
You will have access to our online Training Academy where you will find a range of additional courses and peer support.
Workshop dates
Please choose a pair of dates below, you need to attend both sessions to complete the training.
Anyone can suffer from suicidal thoughts but every one of us can make a difference.
A life is lost through suicide every two hours in the UK but suicidal thoughts and feelings affect thousands of us every single day.
In 2020, 167 people lost their lives to suicide across greater Essex; 83% were male.
The #talksuicideessex campaign has been created by the Mid and South Essex Health and Care Partnership to reduce the stigma around talking about suicide and raise awareness of suicide prevention training available FREE to ALL from the Zero Suicide Alliance.