,

Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs: Food Charities Grant Fund

Front-line food charities are now eligible to apply for a grant of up to £100,000 to help them continue to provide food to vulnerable people during the Coronavirus crisis as part of Defra’s new Food Charities Grant Fund. The fund is operating on a first come first served basis with Defra assessing applications in the order that they come in.

Charities are eligible for the grant if they are unable to meet the increased demand for food from vulnerable individuals and supporting charities and have the capacity to distribute all the food purchased with this grant by 9 August 2020. The grant can be used to purchase food for people who are unable to afford food or have moved into contemporary accommodation due to Covid-19, such as domestic abuse victims, those recently released from prison, or newly homeless people. The fund cannot be used to provide food for the extremely clinically vulnerable, as they are being supported by the government.

To apply, charities have to have registered with the eSourcing portal and apply through that.

/by

Chancellor’s announcement on The Government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme

The Chancellor has announced that the government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme will remain open until the end of October.

Full details of the announcement can be found here: https://bit.ly/CJRSExtension. 

Key details to note:

·  Furloughed workers across the UK will continue to receive 80% of their current salary, up to £2,500.

·  From August, furloughed workers will be able to return to work part-time with employers being asked to pay a percentage towards the salaries of their furloughed staff.

·  The employer payments will substitute the contribution HMG is currently making, ensuring that staff continue to receive 80% of their salary, up to £2,500 a month.

Further details on implementation will be made available by the end of the month. 

/by

COVID-19: Schools, Travelling to Work & Additional Workplace Guidance

Further guidance on coronavirus safety measures has been published, which have been highlighted below for your information:

– Safe workplace guidance: https://bit.ly/CV19WorkingSafely.

– FAQs to summarise what you can and can’t do have been published, which are based on the new guidance: https://bit.ly/CV19FAQs

– Phased opening of schools, colleges and nurseries: https://bit.ly/SchoolsReopening

– Travelling safely: https://bit.ly/CV19SafeTravel

– How to carry out a COVID-19 risk assessment: https://bit.ly/CV19RiskAssessments

– Cleaning your workplace safely: https://bit.ly/CleaningWorkplaces

 

/by

Upcoming Online Training

Support & Supervision in a Virtual World – Thursday 14 May

At this time, many of you may be managing and supporting your teams whilst they work from home. This online workshop looks at good practice in support and supervision, outlining how you can make the necessary adjustments to accommodate the current situation. We will cover:

  • Why support and supervision always matters
  • Golden rules for great 121 meetings
  • Useful questions for 121 meetings
  • Ways to provide support outside of 121
  • Frameworks to make tricky conversations easier

This online course is available from only £20, so find out more and book your space now.

Brand new online training dates coming up

Personal Effectiveness WFH – Tuesday 19 May

Impact: Understanding and Quantifying Your Social Value – Thursday 21 May

DIY in Difficult Times – Staying confident and assertive at work – Thursday 28 May

Click here for further dates and information.

/by
,

Domestic Abuse Safe Accommodation: COVID-19 Emergency Support Fund Update

At the end of last Thursday, the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) issued a call for applications for charities providing domestic abuse safe accommodation services in England (see our funding update below).

Social needs don’t get any more urgent than this, but after waiting a month for any news after this was identified as a funding priority in the Chancellor’s statement, charities were initially given just three working days to bid for emergency funds to help women and girls in serious danger (including a preference for consortia bids!).

The application guidance claims the department will give ‘special consideration to services that provide support to particular groups such as…BAME, LGBT and victims with disabilities’. But the absurdly short application window risks excluding charities supporting those very groups, because they’re likely to have less capacity to rapidly put together applications.

Thankfully the Women’s Resource Centre and the Small Charities Coalition organised a rapid letter to politicians over the weekend which DSC supported, and the deadline has subsequently been moved forward to Thursday 21 May – better but still very tight.

Domestic abuse safe accommodation: COVID-19 emergency support fund

 

/by
,

Maths on Toast

 

Creative maths activities to try at home

Explore our fun creative maths activities, available to download for free! Our activities are suitable for children aged 4-12. We have used this symbol* where they are best suited to older children.

Psst! Parents and carers, remember all of our resources are designed for exploring as a family. There is no right or wrong way, so don’t be afraid to get stuck in and enjoy experimenting. Get creative, play, make mistakes and let children take each activity or challenge as far as they want. You’ll be creating positive memories of maths together as a family – an important step in building a confident, can-do attitude towards maths.

Link

/by

Coronavirus (COVID-19): Returning to the Workplace

View CIPD’s useful guide here.

/by
,

The Baring Foundation

The Baring Foundation’s Strengthening Civil Society programme has today launched three new funding schemes to support its grantees and broader civil society through the Covid-19 crisis. The fund will run throughout 2020 and will amount to £1m in grant money.

The first new stream of funding is for Supporting Legal Action Related To Covid-19 and is open to applications from all registered charities, including current grant holders, with an annual income of less than £5m. Grants are available of up to £40,000 for organisations with a demonstrable legal expertise in the area in which they work.

Deadlines for this fund are staggered throughout 2020, with the first one being midday on Thursday 28 May. Further guidance for applying to the fund can be found on their website, as well as later deadlines, and an application form.

There are two additional new grants, an Operational Impacts Grant and an Increase In Demand For Advice From Frontline Organisations grant. Both of these are open to current grant holders and other organisations who have received funding from the Strengthening Civil Society programme since 2016.

The Operational Impacts Grant is offering small-scale grants of up to £5,000 to organisations who have been severely impacted by Covid-19. The Increase In Demand From Frontline Organisations strand is offering grants of up to £30,000 for hub organisations which provide legal advice to other organisations, helping them to drive social change.

The Implementing successful litigation fund, a previously established fund, is still operating with the next deadline being on May 20th at 9am.

/by
,

Resourcing Racial Justice Fund

Resourcing Racial Justice has announced a fund to support BAME charities through crises, be it Covid-19 or otherwise. Applicants can apply for grants between £5,000 to £50,000 to support their projects that respond to the immediate needs brought about by this crisis, and other crises that may occur after the current pandemic, such as an environmental crisis brought on by global warming.

This comes after the racial justice charity #CharitySoWhite has published an open letter asking for the ringfencing of 20% of Covid-19 related funding for BAME charities citing the recently published report by Ubele stating that 9 out of 10 BAME micro and small organisations are set to close following the lockdown.

The first round of funding opens 18th May and closes 15th June. A launch event webinar will be help on 20th May that will provide more information on the Resourcing Racial Justice Fund and how to apply.

/by
,

Youth Zine West: Call to Young People (16+) to Join Photojournalism Hub Online Sessions

Call to young people (16+) to join the Photojournalism Hub online sessions to produce the Youth Zine West magazine. I am very excited about Youth Zine West mag and I would love as many as possible to benefit from this opportunity to produce content, gain skills and build a portfolio of published material to showcase for future educational and work opportunities. I have added a lot of more time to the project to allow one to one sessions as well as group ones, etc and would like to give this opportunity to a greater number of young adults than initially planned  Registration page

 

/by