Organisation: Citizens Advice Essex
Part-time, 30 hours per week
Salary circa £26 – 27K (pro rata where applicable) dependent on LCA
Location: Colchester
Deadline: 7 April, 2021
Citizens Advice Essex is the lead agency of consortium activities carried out by the network of local Citizens Advice (LCA) in Essex.
On their behalf, and due to our ongoing expansion and extension of some key contracts, we wish to appoint several key staff that will contribute to our extensive fuel poverty alleviation offer.
Advice Worker (Family Energy Advice)
Salary circa £26 – 27K (pro rata where applicable) dependent on LCA
Part-time, 30 hours per week
Colchester – 30 hours per week
Funded till October 2022.
We expect that postholders will have experience working with individuals to resolve problems relating to their welfare benefits and, more widely, their overall financial situation. Ideally, this will have been by delivering welfare benefits advice and casework in the not for profit advice sector. However, experience from other sectors could be relevant. If not already in possession, postholders will be supported to attain the City and Guilds qualification in Energy Advice.
Organisation: Citizens Advice Essex
Full-time, 37 hours per week
Salary circa £26 – 27K dependent on LCA
Location: South Essex
Deadline: 7 April, 2021
Citizens Advice Essex is the lead agency of consortium activities carried out by the network of local Citizens Advice (LCA) in Essex.
On their behalf, and due to our ongoing expansion and extension of some key contracts, we wish to appoint several key staff that will contribute to our extensive fuel poverty alleviation offer.
Advice Worker (Energy Advice and Engagement)
Salary circa £26 – 27K dependent on LCA
South Essex – 37 hours per week
Funded till September 2022
We expect that postholders will have experience working with individuals to resolve problems relating to their welfare benefits and, more widely, their overall financial situation. Ideally, this will have been by delivering welfare benefits advice and casework in the not for profit advice sector. However, experience from other sectors could be relevant. If not already in possession, postholders will be supported to attain the City and Guilds qualification in Energy Advice.
Maximus UK Services are seeking expressions of interest from organisations keen to explore a collaboration in response to the forthcoming Community Wellbeing and Resilience Service being commissioned by Essex County Council.
Maximus UK is a trusted partner of UK and Scottish Government, CCGs, local/combined authorities, and employers. We support over 2 million UK residents each year transform their lives through digitally enhanced employment programmes, mental health support and health assessments.
Our health and wellbeing expertise empowers individuals to change their lives, including demonstrable achievement and maintenance of improvements in lifestyle related behaviours as well as improving participant knowledge, skills and confidence through a range of interventions including health coaching and patient activation.
It was discussed in the last Steering Group meeting that it was time to discontinue the forum which is part of the Alliance membership due to lack of use. The forum hasn’t been used since 2019 and we thought it was time to develop the Alliance more therefore from next week the forum will no longer be accessible. However, we will be looking into starting a private Facebook group which will be linked to the Essex Alliance Facebook page
Any updated information on the private Facebook page will be announced on the ‘news’ section of the Alliance website.
As well as the forum, we will also be removing the official sign up membership process. After a few years the Essex Alliance has become more of a community, a platform where you can share voluntary sector news and information with all newsletter sign ups. Therefore, instead we will only ask that you sign up to our newsletter if you’d like to stay up to date with any sector news within the Essex area.
If you have any information which you would like shared on the Essex Alliance newsletter please email [email protected]
Extra funding of £4.45m is being distributed to the voluntary and community sector (VCS) across Essex to help contain and respond to Covid-19.
Voluntary organisations and community groups across Essex have since March 2020 been helping to meet residents’ need for practical, financial or emotional support through the pandemic. Food projects, advice services, mental health and domestic abuse charities and local projects helping people to shield, self-isolate, get tested or get vaccinated have all played their part (see examples below)
As we emerge from lockdown, needs are expected to grow and change again as residents hit by the pandemic pick up the pieces. People will be dealing with the mental and emotional impact of what they’ve been through and the changes and uncertainty ahead.
£1m goes to Essex Community Foundation for grants up to £20,000 for voluntary organisations
Essex County Council will distribute £1m directly in grants up to £50,000 for medium-sized frontline organisations.
NCVO’s Funding Central funding database has been free to very small charities (under £100k) and very cheap for larger ones (£20), but will close at the end of this month. The Charity Excellence Funding Finder is the only completely free UK non-profit funder database and, whilst it’s hugely popular, with 3000 logins a month, I fund everything myself and can’t afford to pay for marketing to make charities aware of it. Help me help others, by including a link on your website, sharing this with your network, in your newsletter and/or by posting on social media. A post is below.
Charity Excellence Funding Finder is not only a completely free funder database, but also one that finds 100’s of other free funder databases and online funder lists, making funding research simpler and quicker, and giving you click through to a huge range of funders. Updated weekly, it also has the latest Covid funders and 120+ core funders, plus the 50 Charity Excellence downloadable funder lists; everything is free. To access it, register at www.charityexcellence.co.uk
Want to join the 10th year of SSE’s biggest programme? Looking to start, build or scale your social impact organisation in 2021? Register interest in The Lloyds Bank and Bank of Scotland Social Entrepreneurs Programme, jointly funded by The National Lottery Community Fund. Free learning, a grant, a mentor. Plus you’ll learn alongside others in similar roles and become part of the amazing School for Social Entrepreneurs family.
You’ll need even greater resilience, skills and networks to survive and thrive in these challenging times. Register interest and they’ll email you when applications open.
2020 was our biggest programme to date, seeing us distribute £500 grants to 938 charitable organisations delivering sports or physical activities across the UK. With the support and contributions from the players of the People’s Postcode Lottery. 45% of groups who received Magic Little Grants were brand new organisations to our platform.
We are delighted to announce that our 2021 programme promises to be even bigger and better than ever. This programme is now live and accepting applications until 31st October 2021 (application deadline). Not only are we partnering with our usual funding trust, Postcode Community Trust, but we are also partnering with 5 additional funding trusts to distribute £1m pounds worth of funding to 2,000 charitable organisations on Localgiving.
The subject of gambling and its associated harms is currently a hot topic and is acknowledged by health experts as a serious addiction with far reaching negative consequences. It negatively affects relationships, finances, physical and mental health, not just for the gambler but also for those around them.
There are estimated to be around 450,000 disordered gamblers in the UK, including around 75,000 women, and 55,000 people aged under 18. Research suggests that, on average, for every person who is gambling in a disordered way, 6-10 other people are affected, and women and children are disproportionately at risk of experiencing gambling-related harm. Despite the prevalence of gamblingrelated harm, the harms are largely hidden, with fewer than 1% women affected accessing support.
Gambling disorder is a recognised mental health disorder and has been found to lead to the initiation and exacerbation of major depressive episodes, anxiety disorders and substance use disorders, as well as generating intense guilt and shame, impaired decision-making and difficulties sustaining personal and work relationships. Women consistently score higher on measures of psychological distress and are more likely to have experienced domestic abuse, sexual abuse, and past trauma, all of which are risk factors for disordered gambling.
GamCare runs established treatment and support services available to men, women and young people to ensure that where difficulties with gambling exist, they can be tackled through open, nonjudgemental conversations and access to free, specialist treatment and support. GamCare’s National Gambling Helpline took over 38,000 calls last year from men and women affected by gambling-related harm and over 10,000 people accessed free treatment through the treatment network across England, Scotland and Wales. 19% gamblers and 80% affected others calling the National Gambling Helpline were women, with rates of female gamblers seeking support rising at twice the rate of men.
Two-hour (flexible) FREE interactive, online workshop for professionals working with women and families in the East of England We are able to offer you free training and support to provide you with knowledge of how women and young people are affected, the confidence to have conversations about gambling, and awareness of how and when to appropriately signpost and refer on.
In the session you will:
< Learn about the risks and impacts of gaming and disordered gambling
< Discover screening methods to assess the impact of gambling on people’s lives
< Learn how to ask questions about the impacts of gambling-related harm on people’s lives
< Gain vital knowledge about referral pathways for support and treatment
< Understand the issues specific to women and young people
Organised by the Charted Institute of Fundraising – East Anglia
Spring is almost upon us, the days are growing in length and the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel is becoming brighter as more people receive their vaccinations and we have a road map for the easing of lockdown restrictions over the coming months. For some this may be very welcome but it also brings with it further challenges, uncertainties, anxieties and stresses for some – both from a personal as well as a professional basis.
To help those in fundraising across the region (and beyond!), our next virtual event on Thursday 25th March is going to be all about Wellbeing. We have Susanne Reid, who is a qualified and experienced health and wellbeing professional starting the session, and will focus on lots of self-help as well as some practical things we can all do.
Then we will be joined by Gavin Lamb, a Fundraising Manager as well as a mental health first aider at Ormiston Families along with Emma Ihsan, Head of Corporate Partnerships from MIND (national) and who manages a large team. They will be sharing their thoughts about taking care of your mental health and wellbeing in the workplace. There will be plenty of practical advice as well sharing of information to help you develop an action plan which can be a useful tool and aid communication with your line manager.
After the session we’ll also be sending out some follow-up information sheets to build on what was covered.