Nexus may 2017

NEWS FROM THE HAMPSHIRE CVS NETWORK 

Action Hampshire

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Basingstoke Voluntary Action

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Hampshire Wellbeing Advice Services

Communities First Wessex

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Community Action Fareham

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Community First New Forest

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Gosport Voluntary Action

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Hart Voluntary Action

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One Community

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Rushmoor Voluntary Services

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Test Valley Community Services

Children, Young People & Families Forum, Gosport— p2 Fareham Home Helps p2 Internship at GVA—p3 Test Valley Coffee & Chat Drop-Ins— p3 Volunteering from Home—p3 V Team Partners with Growing Together—p4

Community First is facilitating a partnership of information and advice providers across Hampshire. Partners include Autism Hampshire, Citizen's Advice in Havant, East Hampshire and Winchester District, and Age Concern Hampshire.

Funded through Adult Services' Supportive Communities Programme, Hampshire Wellbeing Advice Services is a change management programme designed to improve reach, accessibility and coordination of information and advice services to customers.

Tom Belshaw, Head of Development with Community First, says, “We are working together to test and evidence a ‘no wrong door’ approach to the Produced by Hampshire Councils for Voluntary Service Contact Julia Allan 023 8090 2457 jallan@1community.org.uk Featured articles represent the views of the contributing CVS

provision of information and advice services.

Customers deserve to access appropriate, accessible and timely information and advice.

Hampshire Wellbeing Advice Services aims to prove this approach through working more effectively together to ensure customers are proactively supported to access the support they need when and where they need it.

“As part of this programme we're undertaking research to better understand the experience of customers who access existing advice services within the partnership. We are working closely with Hampshire County Council to ensure the voluntary sector can effectively contribute to the County Council's signposting offer through Connect to Support. We are also going out to speak with members of the public about their experience of accessing information, advice and support.

“Community First will work closely with our colleagues within the CVS network to reach out to members of the public. We've already enjoyed participating in the Charities Awareness Day in Basingstoke, working with the Hampshire Volunteer Centre Network to reach people who volunteer in their local communities, and we are attending an event with colleagues from Rushmore Voluntary Services early next month.

“In the coming few months we will be presenting our findings and a sector led, Hampshire Advice Charter. The Charter will be customer centred and is underpinned by a behaviours framework. The opt-in approach to the Charter enables charities and community groups offering information and advice services to self-assess and, if they wish, participate in a peer review process. It is being co-designed with stakeholders who are local information and advice providers to ensure it compliments and contributes to developing the capacity and capabilities of the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector. The Charter will support a ‘no wrong door’ approach to working more effectively together to improve the quality, accessibility and reach of information and advice services within Hampshire.”

Pictured on the front page are Community First’s Tom Belshaw (left) and Wajda Tabassum (right), with The Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Basingstoke and Deane, at the Basingstoke Charities Awareness Day. NEXUS PAGE 2

Children, Young People & Families Forum Gosport Voluntary Action held their third Children Young People and Families Forum at Gosport Town Hall on Thursday 6 April. Forty two people representing 24 different organisations and services attended, where they had the opportunity to listen to speakers and network with each other.

The theme for this forum was “Keeping Children Safe and Well”. Presentations were made by the Community School Nursing Team, Solent Mind’s Upturn project, Hampshire Fire and Rescue Schools Team and Southern Domestic Abuse Service, who presented a particularly hard-hitting video on how domestic violence affects children.

PC Maria Carrick from Hampshire Police gave an overview of the Safe4Me Education Resource Programme, which includes toolkits available to schools and colleges to highlight the consequences of various risky behaviours. PC Carrick also talked about the Wildfire Initiative which is a project designed by young people chosen as the winners of a competition for World Safer Internet Day. Their original animated concept warns of nude or sexual pictures spreading faster than a wildfire once shared with someone else.

Feedback from the event shows the value and usefulness of these Forums, which will continue to run twice a year.

Home Helps – More than a Helping Hand Community Action Fareham started a Home Helps service over 25 years ago. It is a key part of the charity’s mission to improve quality of life for people in Fareham.

Offering a helping hand with housework to enable someone to remain living at home is invaluable, but only part of what the service delivers. People who struggle with mobility can quickly become isolated. Home Helps are regular, friendly visitors who help to keep their clients connected with the community and with other

sources of support.

Since 2011 Fareham Home Help service has been completely self-funding, while continuing to provide a low cost service for anyone living in Fareham borough who is unable to manage their own basic housework. The service currently supports more than 320 households.

“Thanks to a very successful recruitment campaign this Spring, we now have over 80 registered Home Helps.” Says Jean Petter, Service Manager. “This gives us the capacity to grow our client list in Fareham.”

Potential clients can refer themselves to the service. Every client is visited by a member of the team to assess their needs, before a Home Help is introduced.

Home Helps provide lightweight housework including vacuuming, dusting, cleaning, changing sheets, laundry, ironing and collecting shopping or prescriptions from local shops. Every Home Help is DBS checked and trained in good practice.

Internship at Gosport Voluntary Action In April 2017, Rica Viering, a Business Administration student from Germany, joined the team at Gosport Voluntary Action to conduct a 4-week internship. Rica primarily worked in reception, but also provided administrative support across many of GVA’s projects and events.

This was Rica’s first time in the UK and her first experience of the vibrant voluntary sector.

She hit the ground running and soon became a real asset to the organisation, using her excellent IT skills and knowledge of databases in particular.

Asked about her time at GVA, Rica said, “I found it quite helpful that I got a programme before my internship began, where it was listed where I would be on which day so that I could orientate on that and there was a structured organisation.

“In general, I want to say, that the people of GVA are very friendly and helpful so that I felt welcome immediately. I enjoyed my time at Gosport Voluntary Action.”

GVA wishes Rica well in her studies and would welcome her to visit any time!

Test Valley Coffee and Chat Drop-Ins Providing an outreach service for the rural areas of Test Valley is a priority for Test Valley Community Services (TVCS) this year. Kicking off a campaign of Coffee and Chat Drop-Ins on 24 April, the delightful Nether Wallop Village Hall opened its doors to the TVCS community development and volunteering team. Over a free cuppa and a piece of cake, local people asked a variety of questions such as, “How can we set up our own mother and toddler group?”, “Can you help find volunteers for our pre-school group?”, “Can you help us find funding for equipment?”, and two new groups joined as TVCS members. A positive day all in all.

The Coffee and Chat Drop-Ins are planned in the following locations: Wellow, Clanville, Hurstbourne Tarrant and Lockerley throughout the summer.

Volunteering From Home Having been invited to talk at a Carers Drop-In session in Eastleigh, Volunteer Centre Coordinator at One Community, Charlotte Walker, did a piece of research into volunteering opportunities that might appeal particularly to carers. She took these opportunities along to the talk, together with the monthly Volunteering Matters listing of current volunteering vacancies.

The talk went down well and a number of the volunteers expressed interest in volunteering, despite the obvious issues of being tied to the home and having little time for themselves. The carers saw volunteering as a means of engaging with the outside world, doing something Charlotte Walker

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interesting and different, and perhaps using skills from the work place that they weren’t currently able to employ. Of particular interest were volunteering opportunities that can be done from home.

As a result of the talk and her conversations with carers, Charlotte has compiled a leaflet: “Opportunities for Volunteering that you can do from Home”, these include:  coordinating a good neighbours scheme, taking calls and putting clients in touch with driver volunteers  coordinating street and house-to-house charity fundraising collectors, contacting volunteers and allocating streets/sites and times  online library volunteering – editing and formatting to provide books for readers who require an accessible format  using sewing skills to make period-style costumes for staff and volunteers to wear at a local museum  digital marketing for an arts centre to promote exhibitions and events Also popular is the “Help From Home” website: http://helpfromhome.org Help from Home is a volunteer driven initiative that promotes and encourages participation in easy, no commitment, on-demand micro volunteering.

They offer 800+ actions ranging from knitting blankets to advocacy; tutoring to research participation.

The Volunteer Centre at One Community has long been aware of the benefits of home volunteering to volunteers with mobility problems and conditions such as agoraphobia, and has seen some very successful and long-term placements, particularly in coordinating from home, as it means being in regular touch by phone with clients and service providers, offering help, information, reassurance and having a bit of banter. The kind of contact that reduces social isolation on both sides and provides the level of interaction that brings satisfaction to all concerned.

Charlotte’s new document will be a useful tool in volunteer recruitment, particularly when working with those who face barriers to volunteering.

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V Team Partners with Growing Together

Further to attending a recent Community First Cash & Coffee event held on Hayling Island, the local Growing Together project, run by Hayling Island Horticultural Society, linked up with Community First’s V Team, a team of supported volunteers, to help them prepare school grounds for children at Mengham Junior and Primary schools. The objectives of Growing Together are to:  Enable adults and children to have fun and develop together.  Cross the intergenerational divide.  Offer children a healthy and productive extracurricular activity.  Instil an interest in plants and where food comes from.  Learn basic gardening and teamwork skills.

The V Team helped dig over the ground, clearing weeds and shrubs to prepare for planting and also painted the school’s raised beds. The team worked hard and managed to finish both in one day.

Growing Together was really pleased to get the work completed during the school holidays.

Bill Biggs of Growing Together said, “They did not stop working, and they achieved so much, we are very grateful to them."

The V Team will also be helping prepare the grounds at Hayling College on 2 June as part of Volunteers’ Week, 1-7 June, just one of a number of volunteering events Community First will be running across Havant, East Hants and Winchester.

Cash and Coffee events are informal dropins held to help charities find sources of advice and funding.

In the picture: the V Team hard at work