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.
Our friends at Mid and North East Essex Mind are recruiting!
They’re looking for a passionate and experienced Service Manager to help lead their North East Essex Sanctuary — a vital out-of-hours mental health support service.
In this role, you’ll:
✔️ Support and manage a dedicated frontline team ✔️ Oversee daily service operations ✔️ Work closely with local partners to ensure people in crisis get the right support
If you’ve managed mental health or crisis services and care about making a real difference, this could be the role for you.
Creative You, Creative Client – A Renew Workshop for Counsellors
We’re excited to announce a new workshop designed to help counsellors explore the power of creativity in their practice. Creative You, Creative Client is a one-day introduction to how creativity can enhance therapeutic practice.
This workshop will give you a deeper understanding of your own creative potential and offer practical tools for encouraging creativity in clients. We’ll explore why creativity is essential in therapy, address common barriers to creative expression, and share simple techniques you can start using with clients right away.
Who is this for? Counsellors and trainee counsellors from all modalities interested in developing their own and their clients’ creativity When? 10am – 4pm, Saturday 7th June 2025 Where? Renew Counselling and Training, Sadlers House, 2 Legg Street, Chelmsford CM1 1AH Price: £125.00 (please note a £50 deposit is required to secure your place) Enquiries:michelleallen@renew.org.uk | 01245 264348
Are you passionate about creating a society where every older person lives a happy, connected, and dignified life?
Age Well East is seeking a dynamic and visionary leader to join us as our next Chair of Trustees. This is an exciting opportunity to make a lasting impact across one of the UK’s most populous and diverse counties.
As Chair, you will:
Provide strategic leadership to guide the next phase of our development.
Act as line manager to the CEO, supporting and challenging to drive excellence.
Champion good governance and help us grow our reach and impact.
We’re looking for someone who shares our commitment to empowering people to age well, with the experience and insight to lead a passionate and dedicated Board.
The expected time commitment is around 2–3 days per month, aggregated across the month to support flexibility. Board meetings are held quarterly (mostly via video call), with additional engagement as needed.
To ensure a smooth handover, the successful candidate will be invited to Co-Chair alongside our current Chair, Nick Avery. The length of this transition period is flexible and will be tailored to the new Chair’s preference, with full transition expected by early 2026 at the latest.
🎉 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, visitEssex 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 opportunityto 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.
