Dear Colleagues,
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that we held the VCSEF Alliance meeting at the end of April.
We had a full agenda which included presentations by WVCA Infrastructure Support Team who highlighted that so far this year, among other things, they have worked with 50 different organisations and helped 4 organisations to secure £65K.
We also heard from the Research Evaluation Network Development (REND) Programme – approximately 65 community groups, organisations, faith groups, and Community Interest Companies (CICs) have approached them to learn more about community research. Of those, 30 to 35 organisations applied for their funding, and nearly 20 are currently working with them as community reporters in the Black Country. If you are interested in applying to the programme, please see more on our website or email applyren@wvca.org.uk.
We were joined too by One Wolverhampton Board partners. We heard from Public Health about how our local population is changing, the key trends in health and illness and what progress is being made to tackle the issues. We also heard about the government’s plans to abolish NHS England and focus on the ‘three shifts’: hospital to community; analogue to digital and treatment to prevention.
In case you missed it, the full slide deck of presentations can be downloaded here.
One of the priorities of the OneWolverhampton Partnership is Community Activation (supporting people and communities to take action and look after each other) which is the bread and butter of the VCSEF sector. A number of community champion programmes already exist including children’s champions, student mental health champions, health champions etc. We are working towards bringing together what is already out there in terms of knowledge, expertise and best practice to develop an overarching community champions framework in the city.
Please check out our website and newsletter regularly – opportunities are always presenting themselves, for example, the New Chance initiative is being facilitated and funded by the West Midlands Police & Crime Commissioner and partners. It seeks to divert women from Criminal Justice by providing community-based alternatives to prosecution. WVCA is seeking expressions of interest from community partners who may wish to collaborate.
If there are issues or topics that you would like to have discussed generally or at future VCSEF Alliance meetings, or if there is anything that you would like to hear more about, please contact me on sharon.nanan-sen@wvca.org.uk.
Thank you,
Sharon Nanan-Sen
Chief Executive Officer