Thu, 27th February 10:00 -12:00
Professional Development Centre (Rm 101)
229 Bethnal Green Rd
London, E2 6AB

This quarter Health and Wellbeing forum has an exciting agenda on Diabetes and related issues like weight management. You will find out how the voluntary sector is working with people across the borough, explore how you can get involved with the work in the Local Authority and CCG supporting prevention approaches and residents with diabetes, get an update on commissioning and network to strengthen your organisations offer.

Eleanor Land the public and patient engagement manager for WEL CCG is always on the look-out for interesting and thought-provoking stories from patients, carers or users of health and social care services in Tower Hamlets, and every month would like to have at least two:  one for the Tower Hamlets Together (THT) Board and another for the WEL CCGs Governing Body meeting. These meetings always begin with a ‘patient story’. The aim of the slot is two-fold: (1) so that local people are able to tell their stories to the Board and make suggestions for service improvements and (2) so that the Board can hear from local people and ask questions to help inform their work.

Previous examples of people who have told their stories:

-People with learning disabilities who attend the CREATE Day Centre
-A mother who had become severely depressed because of her continence issues who has now become a peer support worker
-A lady with late-onset PTSD who could not access support due to a lack of trauma counselling in the borough, but who now works at an arts space and uses sound engineering to help with her triggers.

The slot is 30 minutes long (15 mins for the story; 15 mins for Q&A). They are welcome to stay for the rest of the meeting, or leave straight afterwards. The THT meeting is always at 9am (rotating venue in Tower Hamlets), and the CCG meeting is always at 2pm (currently the venue is Stratford but this may change longer-term).
For the past few meetings Eleanor has attended with the patient/carer/service-user, to introduce them and, on occasion, to help assist the conversation. But it does not always need to be her, and if you would like to come along instead to introduce them that would be absolutely fine.  The story can be about anything, so long as it is interesting and thought-provoking and has some relation to health and social care, and I am looking for really good representation from right across the borough (old, young, children, parents, homeless, any health or social care situation, new residents) Eleanor can help arrange for interpreters, childcare, space for buggies and prams if they would like to bring their kids along, wheelchair access, support for carers who would like to bring their loved one with them, refreshments, travel expenses, letters of invitation – pretty much anything that’s required!

Please contact Eleanor.land@nhs.net

Community Support Services for Older People Theme
Up to £15.000
Deadline: Monday 3rd February 2020, 12 noon

The Community Support Services for Older People Theme has been established in order to support the voluntary and community sector across Tower Hamlets to provide activities that bring older people together, increase independence and wellbeing and reduce social isolation.

Guidelines

Access and Participation Theme
Up to £5,000
Deadline: Monday 9th March 2020, 12 noon

The Access and Participation theme has been established in order to support voluntary and community sector activity across Tower Hamlets to provide support, referral and informal advocacy services.

Guidelines

Tower Hamlets Council Small Grants Fund
Up to £5,000
Deadlines: Monday 9th March 2020, 12 noon
Monday 22nd June 2020, 12 noon
Monday 28th September 2020, 12 noon

The Tower Hamlets Council Small Grants Fund is designed to support voluntary and community sector activity across Tower Hamlets that will make a positive difference to the lives of local residents. Small grants of between £200 and £5,000 are available for projects running for up to 12-months. Larger grants of £20,000 are available through the the community cohesion theme.

Guidelines

The London Community Foundation has been chosen to manage the Mayor Office for Policing and Crime’s (MOPAC) Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Grassroots Fund. The £3m fund will focus on supporting existing VAWG-specialist grassroots organisations operating deep in London’s communities.  It follows consultation earlier this year by MOPAC which found that VAWG-specialist grassroots providers are increasingly dealing with greater and more complex needs. ‘Grassroots’ organisations are defined as rooted in, and led by, the communities that they serve and are likely to have an annual income of less than £500k.

The Fund will focus on providing funding to organisations specifically addressing the needs of women with multiple disadvantage and complex needs where mainstream, generic provision is not always appropriate; the needs of marginalised women from BAME backgrounds, LGBTQ+ women, disabled women and women with no recourse to public funds.

Key features of the Fund include:

-Priority focus (80% of funds) on organisations delivering VAWG services to support BAME communities
-Capacity-building support programme to be co-designed with grantees
-Networking events and peer support across grantees
-Engagement of successful grantees in evaluation 
-Two-year funding commitment to existing VAWG-specialist organisations

The Fund will formally launch in early March, but LCF will be holding a series of engagement events in January and February with The Social Innovation Partnership (TSIP) to work with VAWG-specialist grassroots organisations to co-design the Prospectus for the Fund.

Please follow this link to register your interest in attending these engagement events.

If you have any questions, please email the dedicated email address VAWGGrassrootsFund@londoncf.org.uk

Tue, 3rd March 10:00 – 16:00
Tower Hamlets Professional Development Centre
229 Bethnal Green Road
London E2 6AB

Tower Hamlets CVS in partnership with LBTH, Hackney CVS, Redbridge CVS and Barking and Dagenham CVSinvites you to come along to the next "Meet the Funders 2020" event where you will have the chance to speak to funders.

The day will include:

· A market place with information stalls from over 20 local and national funders.
· Opportunities to attend a 30-minute workshop on approaches such as crowdfunding.
· Chances to discuss funding approaches.
· Network with organisations across East London.

Among the funders are: The Arts Council, Berkeley Foundation, Big Lottery Fund, Charity Bank, The Childhood Trust, Clarion Futures, The City Bridge Trust, Clothworkers Foundation, East end Community Foundation, Firesouls, Goodthings Foundation, HMRC, Lloyds Bank Foundation, London Catalyst, London Sport, Small Charities Coallition, Spacehive, The Wakefield and Tetley Trust and more to come!

For further information contact Alison.Robert@thcvs.org.uk