We would like to thank you for the amazingly quick response to the call for the Self-Isolation Support Grant. We had a high number of applications and the grant panel will be reviewing them all over the next few days.

We especially appreciate how busy you are at this time and want to acknowledge your efforts within a very tight window. Applicants will be informed of the outcome within the next fortnight.

We are recruiting a Community Engagement Coordinator who can lead on engaging with communities in Nottingham where there is a low take up of childhood vaccination and immunisation (CVI). Priority work will be to engage with people from primarily Romanian speaking backgrounds and people living in the Radford and Mary Potter area.

This is a part time, 21 hours per week post, fixed term for 24 months (with possible extension).

Our ideal candidate will have a track record of engagement with communities and community leaders. A background in children’s services or general NHS services would also be an advantage.

Please help us by sharing our job advert as widely as you can.
Save / share the full advert (pdf).

The closing date for applications is 12 noon on Monday 4 April 2022.

Wednesday 4 May 2022, 10am to 11am, online via Zoom

Join us via Zoom to meet Sue Heyes, Severn Trent Community Fund Officer for the Nottinghamshire area, as she takes you through the Severn Trent Community Fund criteria and answers any queries you may have.

NCVS is hosting this 'Meet the Funder' event to help you assess if Severn Trent Community Fund could support your group/organisation, and how to apply to the fund. Join Sue Heyes from Severn Trent and Pauline Dorey, NCVS Group Development Officer, to learn how to make the best of this funding opportunity. 

If funding is what you're interested in, and you're looking for general support with writing funding applications, there is still time to book onto our next training session.

Due to staff illness, we had to postpone the Deeper Dive into Writing Funding Applications course that was to take place earlier this month.

The new date is Wednesday 6 April, 10am to 12.15pm. Book a place here (£20).

Nottingham City Council is to create ‘living memorials’ to remember those who lost their lives to Covid-19 in Nottingham.

A Covid Memorial Garden is to be created in Bulwell Forest, while 1,000 trees will be planted across the city to represent the Nottingham residents who died during the pandemic. A Covid Memorial Tree will be dedicated at The Forest Recreation Ground (site of Covid vaccinations and testing) and Forget-me-not seeds will be given to every primary school and made available free to the public from libraries to create an annual city-wide bloom.

The public are invited to attend a Covid Memorial Service in Old Market Square on the steps of the Council House on Saturday 2 April 2022 at 1pm. This will include speeches, readings and reflections from the last two years of the pandemic – as well as observing a minute’s silence.

A page has been developed on the Nottingham City Council website to provide information to help support people affected by the invasion in Ukraine. This includes links to the 'Homes for Ukraine' scheme and how to donate safely. See details.

You may wish to read more background on the 'Homes for Ukraine' scheme, and responses to the government's approach to people seeking refuge.

NACCOM, the UK-wide network of frontline charities, including 31 hosting organisations, providing accommodation and support to destitute people in the asylum and immigration system, welcomes the 'Homes for Ukranian' scheme, but has issued its own response to indicate that the urgency of the scheme should not compromise the safety of hosts and guests. Read the NACCOM statement in full.

NACCOM is also calling on the government to rethink the Nationality and Borders Bill currently going through Parliament.

NCVO has produced a guide on how charities and civil society can support Ukraine. Read it here.

You may be looking for support for yourself and the people you work with.

The Government-funded Local Authority Delivery scheme is open for applications, and homeowners who have a household income of less than £30,000 per year and live in a home that’s hard to keep warm can apply.

To find out more about making energy efficiency improvements to your home, contact the team on 0115 666 7298 or email customersupport@nottinghamcity.gov.uk.

You can also get assistance with paying your energy bills through a variety of means. To find the support that’s on offer, visit this Ask Lion page.

Advice is also available from local charity partners Nottingham Energy Partnership, Age UK Nottingham & Nottinghamshire, and Energy Saving Trust.

You must register to attend an information session before 5pm on 8 April 2022 in order to apply. Deadline for applications is then Monday 23 May 2022 at 11.30am.

BBC Children in Need, in partnership with the #iwill Fund and The Hunter Foundation, are delivering a £3 million fund to support organisations to embed youth social action across the UK.

This funding will support organisations to bring social action and youth empowerment opportunities to children and young people aged under 18, to help prevent or overcome the effects of the disadvantages they face.

Registered organisations (either with the Charity Commission or Companies House) can apply for up to £50,000. Unregistered organisations can apply for up to £15,000.

Deadline for stage 1 expressions of interest: Monday 2 May 2022
(Applicants successful at this stage will be invited to submit a stage 2 application)

The Thomas Wall Trust welcomes proposals which target people (aged 18+) experiencing multiple deprivation or other groups demonstrably facing major hurdles to employment; especially women, people with physical, mental, or learning disabilities, refugees and asylum seekers.

The Trust offers grants up to £5,000 to specific projects or core activities that develop these critical life skills for people from disadvantaged groups.

Eligible charities must have been registered with the Charity Commission for at least three years and have an annual income below £500,000.

Following a period of closure to review its grants processes, the Foundation has reopened its Small and Large Grants applications on a rolling basis. This means you can apply at any time.

This announcement relates to grants in two main areas:

• 'Children and Young People' - Creating the best start in life for disadvantaged children and young people
• 'Later Life' - Reducing isolation and loneliness for older people.

The Foundation offers large grants starting from £10,000 up to around £60,000, and small grants of between £1,000 and £5,000.

All applicants are asked to submit an enquiry and a decision on whether you will be invited to complete a full application will be made within three to four weeks for a large grant and two to three weeks for a small grant.

The next Leaders of Volunteers Network (LoVN) meeting takes place on Zoom on Thursday 14 April 2022 from 10am to 12 noon.

This is an online networking meeting for anyone with an interest in managing, supporting or leading volunteers. Members of the network will receive a suggested agenda in the week before the meeting.

Please ensure you register to attend so that you are sent the Zoom meeting link.

Green social prescribing is a way of connecting people to nature-based activities and green groups, projects and schemes in their local community for support with health and wellbeing. Often this will be through a referral from a Link Worker based at a GP practice or another primary care professional.

Our scheme in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, called GreenSpace, is one of seven government Green Social Prescribing Test and Learn sites. It's all about improving people’s mental health. Green providers, social prescribers, voluntary organisations and community initiatives will help connect many more people with nature-based activities, helping everyone to feel better.

We had a really great response to our first GreenSpace Bulletin and we are happy to bring you even more news from the GreenSpace project.

The bulletin shares news and information about the project and the organisations working with us to develop green social prescribing across Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.

You can view it in your web browser now. If you would like to receive future issues directly to your inbox, please email greenspace@nottinghamcvs.co.uk with a request to be added to the mailing list.

If you made a previous request to be added to the mailing list and you're not receiving the bulletin directly, don't forget to check in your Junk folder. Even trusted and expected emails can go there sometimes.

Tuesday 29 March 2022
Register for an hour slot between 10am and 3pm, at
Units D1-D2, Southglade Business Park, Cowlairs, Nottingham NG5 9RA
Free to attend

Sharewear Clothing Scheme would like to invite those organisations who have benefited from the service over the years to the Open Day at their new national processing and distribution centre, here in Nottingham.

Also, if you haven't used the service before for your beneficiaries, now is your chance to come along and talk to the team about how you could work together in future.

To manage capacity, the day is split into hourly slots and you will be asked to commit to one of these slots upon registering for your free ticket. You are encouraged to book in the 12pm to 1pm or 1pm to 2pm slots as these are currently undersubscribed.

Find out more and register via Eventbrite

Tuesday 29 March 2022, 10am to 12 noon
Online event, free to attend

How can the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector work together with funders and commissioners to improve the lives of women and girls?

Come and explore strategies and solutions to the challenges posed by domestic abuse and sexual abuse, the criminal justice system, Covid-19 and strained finances.

This event has been co-created with a steering group of women and girls organisations in the Midlands.

Find out more and register here.

Thursday 7 April 2022, 10.30am to 12.45pm

An online course giving a basic understanding of roles and responsibilities in the safeguarding of children and young people and how to respond to concerns.

Cost: £25 per participant

Wednesday 13 April 2022, 10.30am to 12.45pm

An online course giving a basic understanding of roles and responsibilities in the safeguarding of adults and how to respond to concerns.

Cost: £25 per participant

Thursday 5 May 2022, 10.30am to 11.45am

An interactive online session for Trustees (or members of Management Committees) of organisations whose activities put them in contact with vulnerable adults or children.

Cost: £15 per participant

Wednesday 18 May 2022, 10.30am to 12.45pm

An online course giving a basic understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the Designated Safeguarding Lead Person.

Cost: £25 per participant

Wednesday 6 April 2022, 10am to 12.15pm

A new interactive hands-on workshop for organisations and community groups who want to practice their skills and would welcome constructive feedback to further develop their skills in writing successful funding applications.

Cost: £20 per participant

Tuesday 12 April 2022, 10.30am to 12.30pm

Are you acting as secretary or note taker, or do you need to record meetings? Learn how to take effective minutes and make your task easier. This two-hour online session replaces our previous face-to-face three-hour course and will take you through the process of producing a 'minute'.

Cost: £20 per participant

Wednesday 27 April 2022, 10am to 11.15am

For organisations and community groups who are new to applying for funding, or for those in need of a refresher. Relevant for groups applying for COVID-19 funding and recovery support as well as other general funding.

Cost: £10 per participant

Tuesday 10 May 2022, 10.30am to 12.30pm

This two-hour online session covers the basic information for all trustees, whether you are new to the role or long-established.

Cost: £20 per participant

Wednesday 18 May 2022, 6pm to 8pm

This two-hour online session is intended for trustees who have completed our 'Being a Trustee' course, who want to further develop their involvement and awareness of trustee duties and improve their personal skill set.

Cost: £20 per participant

Tuesday 21 June 2022, 10.30am to 12.30pm

This new two-hour online session will explain the basics of health and safety, then take you through the process of carrying out a risk assessment in an organisational environment.

Cost: £20 per participant

Wednesday 22 June 2022, 6pm to 8pm

Do you manage a space, office or building? This new two-hour online session will take your Fire Wardens and/or Fire Marshal through the basics. As a result, they will be better equipped to carry out these very important roles.

Cost: £20 per participant

Tuesday 5 April 2022, 10am to 11am

In this one-hour online session, we will identify some of the barriers that potential volunteers face to becoming involved in your organisation and share ideas to remove these barriers.

Cost: £10 per participant

Thursday 28 April 2022, 6pm to 7pm

This one-hour online session looks at methods that have proved to be effective in volunteer leadership, including the best ways to plan, involve, support and retain volunteers.

Cost: £10 per participant

Wednesday 11 May 2022, 10am to 12pm

A two-hour online course for Leaders of Volunteers to start to develop an understanding of some of the legal requirements that relate to your volunteering programme.

Cost: £20 per participant

Tuesday 14 June 2022, 6pm to 7pm

This one-hour online session aims to share some ideas about how best to deal with the inevitable disagreements, personality clashes and conflicts that arise from time to time among a team of volunteers.

Cost: £10 per participant

Tuesday 12 July 2022, 10am to 11am

A one-hour online session to help your volunteer role descriptions stand out, ensuring you attract enthusiastic volunteers.

Cost: £10 per participant

The PDU aims to promote and facilitate collaborative learning and the sharing of good practice among professionals and volunteers from all sectors, in Nottingham and neighbouring areas, who work with people experiencing multiple disadvantage (understood as a combination of mental ill-health, substance misuse, homelessness, offending and domestic abuse, among other issues).

Contact our coordinator Filipa Santos for more information by sending an email to enquiries@pdunottingham.org

Join our free online hub www.pdunottingham.org

Follow us on Twitter @NottinghamCVS #PDUNottingham.

Wednesday 6 April 2022, 10am to 12 noon
Online via Zoom

With guest speaker: Vicky Album, Strengths-based practice Lead, Homeless Link

Strengths-based or asset-based approaches focus on the strengths, potential and goals of the individual. They are truly person-led ways of working that place the individual at the heart of how we deliver services. This can involve a big shift in priorities and can lead to new ways of building relationships, using language, developing processes and much more.

We have teamed up with Homeless Link to deliver an online workshop exploring some of the key learning from their Being Strengths-based toolkit. This will include a mixture of presentations and break out discussions in an interactive event that will help you to apply strengths-based principles to your own work.

Audience: This event is aimed at professionals and volunteers from all sectors who are interested in learning more about strength- or asset- based approaches and how to implement this type of practice in their work.

Thursday 4 May 2022, 9:30am to 4pm
Cleaves Hall Conference Centre, 6 Castle Gate, Nottingham NG1 7AS

Join us for a free workshop exploring good practice essentials on harm reduction. The focus of this workshop will be on harm reduction, with the morning looking at injecting drugs and associated risks and the afternoon exploring other problematic and recreational drugs and how they are used.

In this workshop participants will have an opportunity to:

• Understand what harm reduction is and what it means on a practical level for a wide variety of substances.
• Explore different types of harm reduction, and how it should be included in any discussion about drug use.
• Recognise the complications from injecting and the risks associated with it.
• Explore what support can be provided and how to access this for service users.

Audience: This event is aimed at professionals and volunteers from all sectors who work with people who use substances in non-specialist substance misuse roles.

Monday 4 April 2022, 4pm to 6pm
Online via Zoom

This free, online seminar, run by NPC (New Philanthropy Capital) in partnership with the Clothworker’s Company, explores the kinds of questions trustees should be asking their charities to gather insights on to inform decision-making.

Practical examples will be used to think through how charities can approach questions like:

• Did we make a difference?
• What was our contribution? What change would have happened anyway?
• What worked particularly well about our approach?

Register via Eventbrite

This is a very important issue for all organisations. Did you know that, in 2021, 26% of charities reported a cyber attack or breach? (Source: Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2021).

Nottingham City Council is continuing to offer fully funded online training and 1-2-1 support sessions to charities across D2N2 to help combat cyber and data crime. This is free to charities based in the Nottingham/Nottinghamshire/Derby/Derbyshire area with fewer than 250 employees.

Training includes Cyber Security, GDPR and how to use Microsoft Office 365 resources to cut risks. The training team have extensive experience of cyber-security and lead this training across D2N2.

Course content will be based on the NHS Data Security and Protection Toolkit. The team offer 1-2-1 training of approximately 90 minutes, with a certificate. There is optional free online training.

Places will be allocated on a first come first served basis. No previous IT knowledge is required.

Please contact toolkitsupport@nottinghamcity.gov.uk to arrange a 1-2-1 session at a mutually convenient time, or to ask any questions.

Due to Government Funding in the Adult Education Budget, The AIM Group has several free online VRQ Level 2 Accredited Courses available. These courses can help your staff, volunteers and clients to better understand some key issues around young people's mental health and wellbeing or adult social care, plus a range of other qualifications that may help with developing careers.

Courses are equivalent to a GCSE Grade C, so learners are required to write comprehensive answers for some questions, although no exams or end point assessments are involved.

Qualifications are usually completed within a 6 to 8-week period. The duration is dependent on each learner's ability and number of hours they are available to study (access to courses is 24/7 online).

The only criteria the learner must meet to be eligible is:

• Aged 19 or over
• Have lived in the UK/EU for over three years
• Not already on a government funded course (e.g. apprenticeship).

View the full range of courses here.

If you are interested in undertaking one of these free, online courses, there's a short registration form.

If you have any questions, call Stacey Taylor-Hinds on 0203 900 3091 (extension 226) or email stacey.taylorhinds@theaimgroup.co.uk.

The Nottinghamshire Adult Social Care Services Directory is a free publication for people looking for care services and care information across Nottingham city and Nottinghamshire.

There’s guidance on types of care in the home, different sorts of care homes, and council payments towards the cost of care.

An online version of the publication can be browsed online at the Care Choices website, or downloaded as a pdf. Printed copies are also available, free of charge, for those who do not have online access.

To order a copy or copies of the Nottinghamshire Adult Social Care Directory, please contact Care Choices on 01223 207770 or click the 'Order Directory' button which is on the website link below.

View the online directory on the Care Choices website

The Power Project has been a two-year inquiry, hosted by Sheila McKechnie Foundation (SMK), into civil society, social change and first-hand (or ‘lived’) experience of poverty and inequalities.

SMK has published a new guide, It's All About Power (direct link to pdf). This is a challenge and invitation to the social sector to embrace a new way of thinking about power and to take action to build solidarity in social change. The hope is it will help start the conversations needed to shift the way we all think, work and campaign.

Organisations are being invited to participate in conversations about power. The aim is to create the conditions, within each organisation, for more equitable relationships to flourish with people who profoundly understand the consequences of inequality and its potential solutions.

A first online participatory workshop has been planned for Tuesday 19 April, but is already fully booked. You can still register to join a wait list via Eventbrite.

You can also sign up to join a Community of Practice.

Closing date for applications is Friday 8 April 2022

Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales (LBFEW) are looking to increase the number of Enhance Partners (local consultants) to provide organisational development and resilience support to the charities they partner with.

LBFEW are passionate about strengthening the charities they fund, and developed a network of national and local independent consultants (Enhance Partners) who can provide great support to help charity leaders overcome specific challenges they face.

As part of an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion review of the Enhance programme, in 2021, LBFEW undertook equality monitoring of existing local Enhance Partners, which showed that 92% were white. LBFEW now wants to ensure that partners are more reflective of the charities they support.

Applications are therefore particularly welcome from consultants who are Black, Asian, or from a minority ethnic background, and who can contribute to the development of the Black, Asian and minority ethnic led charity sector.

Nottingham Financial Resilience Partnership wants to hear from residents across the city about their views and experiences on money issues. This is to ensure the Partnership is doing all that is possible to help Nottingham people during a difficult period, due to the cost of living crisis and other factors.

The survey will remain open until Friday 1 April 2022.

If your organisation supports local people, please share this survey with your clients and service users. It is an important part of getting resident input to the city's financial resilience action plan for 2022-2023 and will inform the priorities.

This consultation is open until Friday 22 April 2022

Nottingham City Council is currently consulting on the detailed proposals for Children’s Centres and the new citywide Early Help offer. It is important to hear from as many people as possible about these proposals, so please participate and also share the following links widely with service users and other local residents, partners and staff.

Read more on the Nottingham City Council website.

A number of engagement events are taking place in Children’s Centres directly affected by the proposals, and online.

• In person event in Sneinton on 30 March 2022, 9.15am to 10.30am
  
• In person event in Bulwell on 22 April 2022, 9.15am - 10.30am

Voluntary sector partners are encouraged to attend the online consultation session via MS Teams on Tuesday 5 April 2022 from 5pm to 6.15pm.
Register to attend via Eventbrite

Details of all events can be found here.

If you have any queries about the process, email engage@nottinghamcity.gov.uk.

This consultation is open until Sunday 24 April 2022

Proposals to modernise Nottingham City Libraries and make the service more cost-effective are open for public consultation and there are now more ways to make your voice heard.

The consultation website has been updated with an Easy Read version of the survey.

In person public meetings have also been planned. You are asked to book a place at the Council House event, but booking is not required for the library-based events.

• Tuesday 29 March 2022, 6.30pm to 8pm at The Council House, Old Market Square NG1 2DT - register your place here
• Tuesday 5 April 2022, 1:30pm to 3pm at Basford Library
• Monday 11 April 2022, 6pm to 7:30pm at Radford-Lenton Library
• Tuesday 19 April 2022, 6pm to 7:30pm at Aspley Library

Read more on the Nottingham City Libraries website