Join us at CGL The Alcohol Service to mark this year’s Alcohol Awareness Week which runs from 16-22 November on the theme of ‘Alcohol and mental health’. The campaign provides an ideal opportunity to highlight the link between alcohol and mental health and how by making changes to our drinking behaviour we can reduce our risk of developing or worsening mental health problems such as anxiety and depression.
The Community Business Trade Up programme includes a free learning programme and a Trade Back grant of up to £10,000. Trade Up gives community businesses the skills to grow your income from trading and have more impact. This programme is designed to help people gain the head-space, support network and funding needed to grow a stronger, more sustainable community business.
Priority places will be given to community businesses that are:
- BAME-led (with over 51% BAME leadership in staff or Trustees/Directors), or,
- Located in and giving support to black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) local communities, or,
- Located in and giving support to very deprived or disadvantaged local communities.
Please see the Learning and Development opportunities below and feel free to share them:
- King’s Fund webinar on 8 October 2020 Personalising digital tools for people with learning disabilities: challenges and solutions
- Involving citizens in the next phase of the pandemic response Covid-19 webinar on 13 October 2020
- Re-opening of recruitment for the NHS Volunteer Responders
- Roma communities in the UK: from myths and facts to increasing engagement webinar on 21 October 2020
- NHS England and NHS Improvement have identified eight steps to build on the NHS Long Term Plan commitment to reduce health inequalities
- New online tool to involve young people in policy making
- Better Health – Every Mind Matters campaign offers NHS approved tips and advice to empower parents and carers to look after their children’s mental wellbeing
- Zero Suicide Awareness offer a range of awareness training to look out for and the skills required to approach someone who is struggling, whether that be through social isolation or suicidal thoughts
Over the past 7 months, we have created 2400 matches of items of and business skills to local community groups. These have included but have not been limited to:
- Food donations from Nestle, Greggs, McVities, LNER plus much more
- Clothing donations
- Donations of items such as thermal backpacks to transport hot meals
- Smartphones with pre-loaded data from Tesco
- Laptops from BP
- Linking business skills such as app development support, risk mitigation, marketing, website development etc. with community groups.
The PM today set out plans to transform the training and skills system to help the country recover from coronavirus.
The plans include:
- A Lifetime Skills Guarantee to give adults the chance to take free college courses valued by employers.
- A new entitlement to flexible loans to allow courses to be taken in segments, boosting opportunities to retrain.
A press release issued by the Prime Minister’s Office is available at: https://bit.ly/2S7DCWO. The PM’s speech can meanwhile be read at: https://bit.ly/3n4AjxV
The Skills Toolkit
There has also been an expansion of DfE’s online learning platform, The Skills Toolkit, to more than 70 courses in digital, numeracy and employability or work-readiness courses.
Cats Whiskers Community Arts will be running weekly acting workshops for over 50s as part of Riverside Studios’ community programme, Dive in.
From Friday (2nd October) at 2pm-4pm. Click here
Dear friends and colleagues,
We recently held the first series of information & action round tables looking to the future:
- Opening Up our activities and programmes
- Racism & BAME Issues
- Children & Young People
- Poverty & Economic Divide
- Green New Deal for London
- Enabling Resilient Communities – Building a Strong Civil Society
Thank you to all who participated and we will complete the series with round table discussions on
- Health & Wellbeing – Thursday 15th October – see below
- Spiritual & Cultural Renewal – date to be confirmed
Our plan is to complete a full action report around mid-October and will launch with an event in November.
But wheels are turning again and we are aware that, as well as thinking about creating a “new better” for the future, we may all be faced with responding to another set of urgent needs within our communities.
In the next few weeks we are planning several initiatives:
- Tuesday 29th September. A snapshot survey to gauge your pressures and priorities at the moment. When you receive it please take the 5-10 minutes it will take to complete and return.
- Thursday 8th October. A pan-London Briefing meeting on current issues and concerns, challenges and achievements. We will hear from our partners in the public sector at local and regional level, and enable your voices to be heard.
- Thursday 15th October. In partnership with Healthy London Partnership and Good Thinking, we will hold our next round table on Health and Wellbeing.
More details will be sent out next week. In the meantime you may contact us with any questions or issues you would like to raise at convener@lbfn.org.
Get free business guidance from H&F’s Patch mentor and support network
Get legal, finance and digital marketing guidance from local mentors.
Get more outdoor space to trade from with Our Space is Your Space campaign.
We’re offering local business owners the chance to use extra outdoor space near their business and residents a safer way to support the local economy.
With the impact of the coronavirus measures on community organisations and their vulnerable beneficiaries, we are reaching out to confirm that we continue to operate, partnering with businesses and charities such as yourselves to get goods to where they are needed most.
As we approach the end of the furlough scheme when we will all be supporting the newly vulnerable, we have a wide range of products available including clothing for adults and children, toiletries, baby products, toys, bedding, kitchen equipment and other household items, books, crafts and ambient foods. Goods are for your organisation’s beneficiaries and cannot be sold or used for fundraising. Does this sound useful to your organisation? If so, you can register/request items for free and view available products on our website:
https://products.givingworld.org.uk/register/user
https://products.givingworld.org.uk/product-categories
Please do let us know if there are particular items that would help support your beneficiaries during this difficult time as services resume.
Goods can be collected directly from us, or if this is not possible for you, we can arrange delivery at cost. Delivery costs range from £10 for a box of items to £65 for a full pallet – our website works out a maximum delivery cost based on what you request. We will always endeavour to reduce this when packing your items so that the final charge is as low as possible.
You can find out more here – www.givingworld.org.uk/charity
If you have any questions, any way we can help you deliver more essential supplies to the people who need them most, please call us on 0116 251 6205.
This dedicated support line is open 9.30am-4pm Monday-Thursday and 9.30am-12.30pm Friday.
You can also send an email with any queries to info@givingworld.org.uk
