We wanted to share this as it may be a good resource for people needing advocacy.
Hello
Welcome to our first You Voice focused Spotlight eBulletin. As part of your subscription to our eBulletin, these Spotlight eBulletins are published periodically, delivering more detailed information to our community on key subjects we are unable to expand upon in our General eBulletin.
In this Spotlight eBulletin we outline one of the CVS mission statements and commitments to the community we serve, ’empower the voice of our voluntary, community & faith sector community.’
Our next eBulletin will be our regular General eBulletin, you can find full information on our CVS mailings on our website.
Quick CVS News
We have now launched our Funding Network with the first meeting being held in Sandbach on 30th August. The meeting will focus on Gift Aid and how to make the most of it as a source of income.
This network and its meetings are free to all in the VCFS community. Book your place today.
Your Voice
We are committed to improving how we publicise the work that we do to represent the voice of the voluntary, community and faith sector (VCFS) in Cheshire East.
Some of you know and some of you don’t that one of the roles of CVS is to represent your voice and to support you to raise issues and to influence and effect change. This is mainly something that I do as Chief Executive in attending meetings and contacting people to try and put forward your views or raise how plans that organisations have would affect the VCFS.
The aim of this voice themed e-bulletin is simply to make you aware that we can represent your voice and how we can do that. There are also a few areas we are working on at the moment which you may be interested in.
The Support CVS offer
Firstly, we can support you individually e.g. do you have an issue with a statutory organisation, or another VCFS that you need a bit of help with.
Some examples we have supported over the last 12 months are:
- Providing an advocacy service to an organisation that has had Safeguarding issues. Our support has included attending meetings with the Council and then putting a development plan in place with the organisation.
- Providing mediation support for a Trustee Board that had to manage concerns with the behavior of a Trustee member.
- Providing advice and mediation support for 3 organisations in relation to breakdowns in the subcontracting relationship with their lead partner.
This service is currently only open to members of CVS – find out more about our membership here.
Secondly, we can support with strategic issues. These are issues that affect more than 1 organisation.
The strategic issues we are involved with are:
The New Homes Bonus Community Fund – read my article to find out more (link to the article https://www.cvsce.org.uk/blog/new-homes-bonus-funding)
The Early Help Framework – read my article to find out more (link to the article https://www.cvsce.org.uk/blog/early-help-framework )
ESF – Development of Community Grants Scheme – we are trying to influence the development of a new grant scheme – read my article to keep up to date with this (link to the article https://www.cvsce.org.uk/blog/esf-technical-assistance-potential-community-grants-scheme)
Facilitating a Roundtable with Cheshire East Council to consider long term joint working with the council. Read my article here to keep up to date with this (link to article https://www.cvsce.org.uk/blog/improving-links-cheshire-east-council)
If you want to find out more or share your views on this you can comment on the article or email me directly (contact details below).
We will be keeping these updated with what we are up to so make sure to visit the page with everything we are doing on. (link to the page https://www.cvsce.org.uk/blog)
To find out how to raise your voice visit our updated website here with all the details. (link to page https://www.cvsce.org.uk/voice-sector/voice-sector-how-it-works)
Results of the Voice Survey
Earlier this year many of you completed our voice survey, telling us how you would like to raise your voice and what support you would like from CVS.
The full results of the survey are here (link to page – https://www.cvsce.org.uk/voice-sector/voice-survey-results).
In summary of these results, CVS is committed over the next 12 months to:
Focusing on improving the relationship between the VCFS and the Clinical Commissioning Groups (Health)
Improving how it communicates with the VCFS and partners on voice issues, reporting back what we are working on.
Continuing to build the relationship with all statutory partners and carry out further research to identify their views on the VCFS in Cheshire East
If you want help with an issue or think there is something we should be working on then please either contact myself on caroline.whitney@cvsce.org.uk 07792 754904 or any CVS team member.
Regards
Caroline Whitney
Chief Executive Officer
Community & Voluntary Services Cheshire East
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