Could you be a trustee with Healthwatch Essex? We are looking for someone with exceptional qualities who can add value to the governance of our charity. We are keen to hear from you if you have particular expertise or experience in finance or accounting. More details are available in the:
2 Posts – one each at Citizens Advice Uttlesford and Citizens Advice Harlow
Hours: 18.5 hours per week
Salary: FTE Circa £30,000 (actual salary will be determined by employing Local Citizens Advice Office but is expected to be in this region)
Citizens Advice Essex, the consortium of local Citizens Advice serving Essex, Southend and Thurrock, has entered into a long-term partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support to set up and deliver a new specialist advice service providing expert welfare benefits advice to people diagnosed with cancer and their families. The service aims to support individuals holistically, to ensure the financial effect of their diagnosis is mitigated by ensuring all possible benefits are claimed, other sources of financial support accessed and that they are referred to other Citizens Advice or Macmillan services where appropriate.
To assist the Project Manager in overall operational management for Macmillan-funded services across the Citizen Advice Consortium. Candidates will require previous administrative experience. We welcome applications from those who have worked in a project management environment or where this has been a significant element of their organisation’s work.
We are very excited to announce the launch of the VVU Community Grants funding for 2023-2024.
As a partnership, our strategic goal is to reduce serious violence, the harm it causes, and to safeguard those at risk (relating to county lines, gangs and knife crime). We recognise that local organisations and groups are at the forefront of some amazing work that takes place to address these issues and we would like to support this work further as much as we can.
Our 2022-2024 VVCS grant round is for local *’not for profit’ voluntary or community clubs or organisations based in (and therefore delivering in) Essex, Southend and Thurrock only, and we are looking to fund projects that meet our stated aims and can run from April 2023- 31st March 2024.
Groups can apply for up to **£20,000 to deliver support and interventions for children, young people, young adults and families (families must include children and young people, and ‘young person’ is defined as up to the age of 25). 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.
**Our grants funding this year has a total pot of just under £156,000 that we will look to distribute as evenly as possible across the 12 ECC districts/ Quadrants plus Southend & Thurrock. Please bear this is mind when completing your applications.
We would be particularly interested in projects that can evidence they are meeting needs as highlighted by young people and local residents in our Listening Project 2021-2022.
You can read the full report here https://ecvys.files.wordpress.com/2022/03/vvu-listening-2021-2022-youth-report-final.pdf The report only focuses on 7 Districts in Essex, but the fund is open to all (including Southend & Thurrock). Some examples of need highlighted in the report are-
• Indoor/ outdoor safe spaces with affordable & inclusive activities for young people to socialise (this can include a one off cost for lighting the outside of voluntary group spaces to create a safer space for young people, additional staff or youth activities).
• Opportunities for young people to learn life skills, participate in community based or volunteering projects and undertake work experience
• Work with young people and their families to raise awareness of youth violence
• Projects that promote greater communication and positive engagement between the police, youth groups and schools
• Targeted youth work aimed at those young people most at risk of exploitation
• Support for victims of youth violence
• Drugs education in informal settings or led by voluntary groups in schools with evidenced links to how drug use relates to young people becoming involved in serious violence
The fund is open to work of all ages from 0-25 but we would especially like to see some applications for creative work around risk taking behaviours with primary school age children and their families.
Please do read the listening report and try to evidence the need for your intervention within your application, referencing the listening report or local needs if your district is not one of the 7 listed.
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
• Have a letter of support from the local CSP
*PLEASE NOTE THAT: Your organisation MUST have a recognised constitution and be a- not for profit voluntary or community club or organisation, a registered Charity, A not for profit company or community interest company or other social enterprise. company limited by guarantee, charitable incorporated organisation or Registered society.
Background
The ‘Worrying About Money’ leaflet (also known as a Cash First Referral Leaflet) has been developed by Uttlesford Foodbank, in collaboration with the Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN). It is based on a widely used template, already in
circulation across many parts of the UK: https://www.foodaidnetwork.org.uk/cash-first-leaflets
The purpose of the leaflet is to support residents in Uttlesford who may be worried about money. It sign-posts a range of local and national routes to help. We are inviting our partners, supporters and community networks to help us distribute online
and hard copies throughout Uttlesford. An electronic copy of the Uttlesford leaflet can be downloaded here: https://ifanuk.org/uttlesford-leaflet
A copy of the leaflet may be uploaded to your website (e.g. a news or resources page). You may also choose to attach it to communications that are issued by you.
Social Media
Please look out for our social media posts about the leaflet on Facebook, Twitter and
Instagram.
Facebook: uttlesfordfoodbank
Twitter: uttlesfordfb
Instagram: uttlesfordfoodbank
We invite you to share our posts to your network. You may also choose to create your own post, linking to an online copy of the leaflet. Please tag Uttlesford Foodbank on the relevant social media channel, and we’ll look to like/comment/share
your post as well.
On Wednesday 13th July, the Leading Greater Essex (LGE) programme welcomed participants to only it’s second in-person meeting since 2019. Held at the high tech (and air conditioned) Civic Hub in Epping, the event was a high energy series of discussions, group conversations and thought-provoking theories that enhanced the group and the individual learning of all involved.
Led by our LGE consultants; Stephen Moss and Monica Harding from PSTA, and Jeff Masters from Collaborate, the day started with an energising icebreaker asking individuals to act as either High Status or Low Status individuals, and to act accordingly as they introduced themselves to others in the room. An interesting dynamic formed and highlighted how different conversations arise based on the body language, and perceived status of an individual – a key observation for our future system leaders.
Our Leading Greater Essex participants are roughly half-way through the programme and becoming fully emersed in their System Challenges. These are real challenges identified by Essex Partners as having cross sector significance, with no easy solution. The primary purpose of the system challenges is to offer individual participants the opportunity to apply their learning and to work collectively in groups of eight to consider these complex public policy challenges.
Examples of our 2022 System Challenges:
· How can we improve health and care outcomes for Veterans across Mid and South Essex?
· How could we create a long-term, system-wide approach to addressing health inequalities in our coastal communities?
· How are the Levelling Up projects going to be measured to ensure success across Greater Essex and what does success look like?
Before the end of the in-person session, the facilitators shared some useful thinking on the importance of understanding the impact of pressures on behaviour. The group felt that managing your energy, and not your time, is something that everyone can all benefit from, and shared this article from the Harvard Business Review with Essex Future News: ‘Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time’.
The next step for our participants is to delve deeper into the challenges they have chosen and begin to identify potential solutions before they present back to sponsors and Essex Partners at a celebration event on the 4th November.
Essex County Council has published the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) for the first time on the Essex Open Data platform.
The JSNA summarises information from several different data sources, to provide an assessment of the current and future health and wellbeing needs of the county’s communities.
All the data used in the reports is available in the form of interactive dashboards, enabling anyone to pull out the insights of most interest to them on topics such as:
· Health outcomes of the local population (including mental health), for example length and quality of life
· Health behaviours, such as diet, exercise, smoking and alcohol consumption
· Communities’ access to care and the quality of life
· Wider social and economic factors, such as income and education, that affect our mental and physical health
· Insights into the local physical environment that impact on our health.
You can explore the JSNA for yourself by clicking here! The JSNA itself is an ongoing, iterative process presented as a suite of resources, interactive reports, briefings, downloadable reports, and datasets, that will be updated regularly as new analysis and insight becomes available. By designing the JSNA in this way we hope that it will be a ‘live’ resource for organisations, and residents, across Essex.
The Essex Open Data portal is a rich source of information which, like the JSNA, can be used as an evidence base for local authorities, partners, voluntary and community groups to prepare bids and business cases. This evidence helps to ensure that our services are designed with the needs and views of the local population in mind.
Citizens Advice Essex, the consortium of local Citizens Advice serving Essex, Southend and Thurrock, has entered into a long-term partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support to set up and deliver a new specialist advice service providing expert welfare benefits advice to people diagnosed with cancer and their families.
The service aims to support individuals holistically, to ensure the financial effect of their diagnosis is mitigated by ensuring all possible benefits are claimed, other sources of financial support accessed and that they are referred to other Citizens Advice or Macmillan services where appropriate.
We have 14 positions available across four roles – ranging from specialist casework, supervision and administrative support. To request download details or to apply please click on the links. For an informal discussion, please contact Martin Lord on 077422 31152 Or email [email protected]
The great majority of funding is applied to projects and groups within Essex: either directly or through national charities for specific Essex-based projects. Each application is considered by the Trustees collectively, and if approved, an appropriate donation is determined.
The Grants Administrators may arrange to visit potential recipients before or after any grant is awarded in order to establish any anticipated benefit, or to monitor its outcome.
The Trust does not award annual grants. At least 12 months must elapse before further applications may be made.
Applications for core funding, project-based initiatives, refurbishment of premises and also equipment costs may all be considered for awards.