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A warm welcome to our December newsletter to round up and celebrate the hard work of 2023. We hope everyone has a peaceful festive break and a fantastic start to 2024. Included in this edition:
- The VCSE Team 2023 Highlights
- You Said, We Did: Training and Networking Programme Success
- The Heart of England Inclusive Communities Fund & Social Fabric Fund
- Free training available on Data Analysis, Social Media, Excel, Suicide Awareness, mental health crisis support to young people and Oliver McGowan learning disabilities and autism
- Showcasing the VCSE Dosti Group's activities.
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Looking back at VCSE 2023 Highlights
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We are proud to work with an amazing variety of VCSEs across Coventry & Warwickshire. Although there is still so much more to be done to secure support for Community Mental Health services, we wanted to celebrate some of the progress made during 2023 while taking stock on what will be next for 2024.
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You Said, We Did: Training & Networking Success!
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At the VCSE Forums the need for more networking opportunities and a platform to tell others about your services has regularly come up as a top priority. The need to help facilitate VCSEs and clinical staff to build partnerships has never felt more pressing and we were delighted to welcome 44 delegates to our November CMHT Networking event.
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Our 2023 Events and Training Programme have seen a total of 241 attendees, 200 of those unique participants, with some courses sold out. To celebrate the success of the programme we have created a short video of the highlights! We are really grateful to those who contributed their ideas to help refine the format of the events for when we return in 2024.
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Calling all Podcasters!
We are looking at different ways to engage new audiences for the fantastic work VCSEs are doing and feel a series of podcasts might be the next step to promote the work we do. Would a podcast be something you would be interested in listening to yourself and to share with your stakeholders?... Do you have some experience with podcasts and
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could we ask you some questions about it? If the answer is yes to either of these questions, we would love to hear from you at sarah.davison@wcava.org.uk
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The Inclusive Communities Fund Launches
The Heart of England launched the Inclusive Communities Fund in November to provide Legacy funding to aid local areas, which includes Coventry and Warwickshire. Grants will be available for works, activities and services that will contribute to the four core missions of the Commonwealth Games (Bringing people together, Improving health and wellbeing, Helping the region to grow & Putting the region on the map) and which fall within one or more of the following three themes: Physical activity and sport, Mental health and well-being & Arts, culture and creativity. Deadline for submissions is 4th January 2024.
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Free Training for VCSEs
We are always on the look out for free bite-sized training opportunities to help VCSEs improve their skills. We wanted to spread the word about these organisations so good causes can take full advantage of them.
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The Third Sector Lab offer a series of 60-minute workshops aimed at volunteers and non-profits to build knowledge around best digital practices and tools and ultimately to help increase your digital impact. Their courses are in subjects such as Data Analysis, Social Media, AI and Excel and you can watch back sessions from their YouTube Channel
NHS England have commissioned People Unlimited to deliver sessions to practitioners working in mental health crisis teams, to help increase their confidence and give additional tools when providing support over the phone and negotiating safe outcomes. More information can be found at https://crisistools.org.uk/academy/
The Zero Suicide Alliance have a great collection of short online courses on Suicide Prevention tailored to a variety of audiences alongside more general resources.
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Oliver McGowan Training
Our NHS colleagues have kindly made available free of charge some e-learning modules in learning disability and autism
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under the Oliver McGowan area of training, specifically designed for those working in health and social care. The training can be accessed after setting up an account at https://portal.e-lfh.org.uk/ Once you have used the training packages it would be appreciated if you can email olivermcgowanmandatorytraining@covwarkpt.nhs.uk for monitoring purposes.
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Social Fabric Fund
Warwickshire County Council with the Heart of England are investing in social infrastructure to develop and strengthen Warwickshire’s most deprived communities and reduce inequalities.
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The Social Fabric Fund is a blended £2.5million fund, with no lower or upper grant limit. It's aim is to fill a gap in funding available to communities by being flexible and starting with the communities’ strengths and priorities. Warwickshire CAVA are offering support with applications, please contact Thom for more assistance thom.udall@wcava.org.uk
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Spotlight on The DOSTI Group
For each newsletter we try and shine a light on some of the impactful work the VCSE do in mental health services. The DOSTI Group were established in 2012 and has had a great 2023 reaching over 60 users with their support activities.
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The DOSTI group was setup to provide a safe and trusted environment for older women who were isolated due to language and cultural barriers. Activities include talks from health professionals, cooking sessions and food sharing, all with a focus on mental health. The opportunity to meet, share and learn is a strong emphasis of the group to help boost participants mood, increase their confidence and unleash their potential.
A recent DOSTI campaign was Memories in a Box in 2022. This project collected together rich stories for an online exhibition for the commonwealth games, showcasing the skills of those who travelled from thousands of miles away making Birmingham their home.
In 2019 DOSTI were recognised in the Vision2Reality Elders Awards and the Contributions to the Community Award which was a boost to the hard work of the volunteers.
For more information see http://www.dostigroup.co.uk/
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