This is a place where you can find out about opportunities that are available to your organisation. From funding streams to events and training, The Essex Alliance will keep you informed.
🎉 Carers Week: 9–15 June 🎉 To mark Carers Week, Essex County Council and partners are hosting daily bite-size webinarsto help professionals identify carers early and signpost them to the right support.
📍 Open to all front-line professionals and services across Essex 🖥️ Hosted on Microsoft Teams
🔍 Each session covers a key area:
9 June – Support for young carers
10 June – Support for adult carers
11 June – Supporting carers of people with dementia
12 June – Advocacy supportfor carers
13 June – Employer supportfor working carers
Don’t miss this opportunity to enhance your knowledge and improve outcomes for carers in your community.
Essex County Council is seeking compassionate individuals to join their community of foster carers. With more children than ever needing a safe and loving home, your support can make a world of difference.
Essex County Council offer exceptional support, award-winning training, competitive fees and have a whole community around you. New foster carers in 2025 will receive a £2000 welcome bonus. With various fostering options to suit your lifestyle, there’s never been better time to foster.
Become a foster carer and provide a child with the safe and loving home they deserve. Learn more at an information event where you can meet foster carers and ask questions. Join them in-person on Saturday 17 May or find a virtual event.
On 21 March, all 15 councils across Greater Essex, together with the Office of the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (OPFCC), submitted an interim proposal for Local Government Reorganisation to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).
The proposal represents a collaborative effort across Greater Essex to explore the potential for creating new unitary council structures. These changes aim to improve the efficiency, accountability, and delivery of public services across the region.
Working together with colleagues across the county, ECC are carefully considering the response and will incorporate this input as they refine their plans. Detailed proposals will be submitted to the MHCLG by the end of September.
We remain committed to keeping residents and stakeholders informed throughout this process. For ongoing updates on Local Government Reorganisation and Devolution in Greater Essex, please visit this page.
Fraud is on the rise in Essex — with a 6.1% increase in offences over the past year, totalling 9,604 incidentsand a staggering £68.5 millionin losses.
Despite the scale of the issue, many residents still feel unsure or anxious about reporting fraud. In fact, Essex Police estimate that many people experience fraud at least once a month, yet most cases go unreported.
To help tackle this, the Multi-Agency Approach to Fraud (MAAF)has launched a new anonymous surveyto understand public awareness and experiences of fraud and scams — whether or not you’ve been a victim. The goal is to better focus resources, improve prevention strategies, and ultimately reduce fraud across Southend, Essex, and Thurrock.
MAAFbrings together key organisations including:
Essex County Council
Essex Police
Essex Trading Standards
Victim Support
The Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner
We’re asking all Alliance members and partners to support this important initiative by sharing the survey widely — through your communications channels, networks, and with your communities. Every response counts.
Councillor Mark Durham, who oversees Essex Trading Standards, said:
“Fraudsters are always looking at new ways to scam people to a point where it’s not always immediately clear when you’ve been a victim. This can make fraud a difficult crime to combat and means we have to constantly evolve our tactics. However, if enough people come forward and engage with our anonymous survey, we can get a better understanding of the issues faced and start stamping out what has become a rampant issue across the UK.”
If you’ve been affected by fraud or want to learn more, visit Essex Police.
Hearing Help Essex are looking to recruit more Volunteers in the districts of Southend, Castle Point and Rochford.
Do you have a few hours to spare each month?
Are you looking for a rewarding and fun volunteering opportunity?
We would love to hear from you!
We are looking for 3 new technical volunteers to join our award-winning team of volunteers to enable us to help more people across Southend, Rochford, and Castle Point districts.
Join us at St Andrews Church, Greenstead, Colchester for a Compassionate Community Meetup…
🫶       Compassionate Community Meetups are an opportunity to be part of a special network of people, places and projects who are coming together to support others during life’s most difficult moments.
🌞       We are starting with a cuppa at 10am with intro’s from the St Andrews team and Safe Harbour Project at St Helena, who will describe how they are supporting local communities and collaborating with community ambassadors.
👟       A group wellbeing walk & talk will start at 11am for those who wish to participate.
❤️     These really are fantastic events that bring communities together, as you can see from the pics below from our April Meetup
Thinking about whether to turn your community group, company or CIC into a charity? Find out the pros and cons, how it works, and get your questions answered.
Write and submit your bid with support, strategy & cheerleading
with Christina Poulton
If you wear all the hats and writing bids is one thing on your to-do list, it’s stressful. There’s no one to bounce ideas off, no one to answer your questions, and no one to cheer when you finally hit submit.
Hiring a bid writer is often out of budget, and besides, no one can tell the story of your work like you can!
That’s where the Funding Bids: Make It Happen Week comes in.
Sign up to get a focused week of action designed to help you plan, write, and submit a strong funding application, with support every step of the way
Location: Innovation Centre, Knowledge Gateway, University of Essex
After a sell-out at our launch event in Feb, the Compassionate Businesses Network is thrilled to invite you to this next space for inspiring leadership, purposeful networking, and community-driven ideas.
Join fellow forward-thinking professionals from across North East Essex to connect, collaborate and champion compassion in the workplace.
🌟 Why Attend?
✔️ Meet like-minded professionals
✔️ Get inspired by real-life compassionate leadership
✔️ Take away ideas that strengthen your people, purpose and performance
✔️ Help shape a growing local compassionate community
 What’s on the agenda? 08:30–09:00 – Power networking with brilliant local businesses 09:00–10:00 – Headline Speaker: Mark Millbourne, Headteacher, Prettygate Schools.
🔥 Mark will be describing how creating a nurturing school community culture has boosted outcomes – and how these lessons translate directly to compassionate business strategy.
10:00–10:30 – Community Asset Exchange – share, spark, support
 💡 Limited tickets available – CLICK HERE to book now and avoid disappointment!
Free parking and welcome refreshments are included! All proceeds support the development of the network and your community.
Follow the Compassionate Businesses Network on LinkedIn
There is now less than one week remaining to respond to the UK Government’s consultation on the proposed formation of a Mayoral Combined County Authority for Essex, Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock.
While the proposed devolution deal could bring significant benefits such as greater local control over funding and decision-making in areas like skills, transport, and business support it is important to note that the consultation also seeks views on future governance arrangements.
Voluntary sector colleagues are strongly encouraged to respond, even if they are broadly supportive of devolution overall. This is a key opportunity to help shape how governance will work in practice, and to ensure that any new arrangements meaningfully reflect and leverage the insights, experience, and community reach of the voluntary sector.
It is vital that the voice of the sector is heard in discussions about how representation is structured and how local knowledge can best inform decision-making within a future Mayoral Combined Authority.
Details of the consultation and how to respond can be found here:
