- By Buckinghamshire Business First
- 5 September, 2018
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Featuring Buckinghamshire Mind, Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, Chiltern MS Centre, Heart of Bucks, Ashridge Group, B P Collins & more.
Ashridge Group becomes Chilterns MS Centre’s latest Corporate Friend
Find out more about the centre’s Corporate Friend programme, and how you can join it.
Service to provide mental health support in schools receives funding boost
Buckinghamshire Mind, the mental health charity, has been awarded a grant of £4,952 from the Rothschild Foundation for the charity’s Peer Support in Schools Service. The aim of this service is to empower schools, young people, parents and teachers to tackle the stigma associated with mental health and encourage individuals to seek support as and when they need it.
The Peer Support in Schools Service is available to both primary and secondary schools across the county. Buckinghamshire Mind’s team trains students from the top year of the school - sixth formers and primary school children in Year 5/6 - in mental health awareness helping them become Peer Mentors to the students in younger years throughout the school. This training includes general mental health awareness and key aspects of their role, such as their responsibilities, communication, listening skills and safeguarding.
To find out more, please contact Zoe Sole, Peer Support in Schools Lead, on 07508 021911, email zoe.sole@bucksmind.org.uk or visit www.bucksmind.org.uk/services/peer-support-in-schools.
Hearing Dogs for Deaf People open restaurant in Saunderton
Hearing Dogs for Deaf People has opened the Grange Restaurant and Gift Shop in Saunderton (seen in the image above) to raise awareness and funds to help them help more deaf people. Every single penny of profit from The Grange Restaurant and Gift Shop goes towards training more dogs to change the lives of deaf people.
There’s even an on-site Hearing Hub for those wishing to find out more about how to manage their own hearing. Couples, friends and families with or without children or dogs can enjoy a warm welcome, and leave knowing that your visit supports Hearing Dogs for Deaf People’s life-changing charitable work.
Benefit gig raises vital funds for Bucks Mind
Buckinghamshire Mind held a benefit gig, Busk for Bucks Mind, on 6th July at Dukes Aylesbury, to raise funds for its vital mental health services.
The event, sponsored by Esri UK Ltd, featured a host of incredible musical talent, both acoustic and electric, and was headlined by El Bronson. Other local performers included Nightjar, The Respites, Harry Quinn, JP&betty, Suzy Bee, Jim Marvin, The Recovered and Róisín Johnston. Funds were raised through ticket sales and donations given by the many generous supporters who attended the event.
The difference these funds will make to the lives of people with mental health problems is best illustrated by Buckinghamshire Mind’s service users:
- “If it wasn’t for Bucks Mind I don’t know where I’d be. They’ve really helped me so much.”
- “The support group has been so valuable. It has given me the opportunity to express any issues and talk through any problems. It gives me the chance to meet other people who are experiencing the same or similar as me and to find support.”
- “When I started coming to Friends in Need I was suicidal but now I am about to start a new job. Coming to Friends in Need has given me back my self-confidence, got rid of my feelings of worthlessness and given my self-esteem a boost!”
Time to Change Buckinghamshire hub
The Time to Change Buckinghamshire ‘hub’ was launched at this year’s Busk for Bucks Mind. The hub is an exciting, new approach to get everyone in Buckinghamshire talking more about mental health.
Time to Change is a growing national social movement that aims to change how we all think and act about mental health, to help end the stigma and discrimination attached to it. Buckinghamshire County Council and Buckinghamshire Mind are lead partners for the Buckinghamshire hub, with wider support from organisations and individuals from across the county.
The aim of the Buckinghamshire hub is to support residents, communities, workplaces and schools to help end the negative attitudes and behaviours towards people experiencing mental health problems. The ethos behind the hub is to put people with personal experience of mental health at the heart of the work.
To find out more, please visit:
Charity Excellence Framework finalist in Heropreneur Awards
The Charity Excellence Framework, a free, digital platform for non-profit boards and senior teams, has been chosen as a finalist in the Heropreneur Awards. It has been designed specifically to support the sector in meeting the huge challenges we face, including achieving financial sustainability and how well people are protected from harm. The average user feedback score is 9/10.
It creates a unique model for each non-profit, based on its size, location, role and activities, optimises reporting for its specific priorities and individually links each of the hundreds of metrics reported to relevant resources from across the web.
Launched in June 2018, it has taken its founder Ian McLintock two years to create, funded by savings. He has been involved in the sector for 40 years and has previously built systems for very large organisations. It is only phase one of an ambitious plan, including a sector data store, digital shareholders, and an online CEO qualification and fit-to-practice accreditation.
This will require very little funding, as it has been designed in from the outset. However, ownerships needs to be transferred to the sector to make it a reality, so he is actively seeking organisations interested in working with him.
To join, go to https://www.charityexcellence.co.uk and click ‘Register now’. You can also email Ian at ian.mclintock2@btinternet.com.
The project was supported by Buckinghamshire Business First and Adviza under the Buckinghamshire Skills Brokerage programme.
Mental health awareness assemblies for school children funded by Monodraught
Monodraught Ltd, the High Wycombe based commercial ventilation, cooling and daylight specialists, has awarded a generous grant to Buckinghamshire Mind to fund 10 mental health awareness assemblies in Buckinghamshire schools.
The aim of the assemblies is to break down the stigma and discrimination associated with mental health by educating children and young people to enable them to open-up and talk about mental health in school, at home and with friends.
Jo Ibbett, Children and Young People’s Services Team Lead, Buckinghamshire Mind, said: “We know that 1 in 10 children and young people have a diagnosable mental health problem. Buckinghamshire Mind aims to reduce this figure through early intervention and by providing school assemblies and other activities to educate children at an early age.”
For more information about Buckinghamshire Mind’s Education Service, please contact Zoe Sole on 07508 021911, email zoe.sole@bucksmind.org.uk or visit www.bucksmind.org.uk.
B P Collins’ £10,000 charity fund to support more charities
B P Collins' latest charity fund recently closed for submissions, with more local charities set to benefit from funding. The law firms works with Heart of Bucks to provide funding for local charities and projects that are aimed at delivering positive social impacts and improving lives.
The awards are centred on meeting three objectives, which fit in with the firm’s CSR values: building stronger communities; providing better futures; and helping create safer lives. As long as the organisation nominated fits one of these themes, there are no restrictions on what the award can be used towards - it may be for general costs, purchasing equipment or to support a community project. The awards range from £500 to £3,500.
Although the latest charity fund has just closed, get in touch with either B P Collins or Heart of Bucks to find out about future funds.
This year, B P Collins was awarded a gold mark in the recently launched Corporate Social Responsibility Accreditation scheme, a visible testimony of excellence in CSR.
Buckinghamshire County Council’s Fostering Friendly campaign
By Richard Nash, Service Director, Children’s Social Care, Buckinghamshire County Council
Did you know there is a simple, low cost way you can support families and children in our local communities? All it involves is signing up to become a Fostering Friendly employer.
The commitment on your part is minimal but the benefits to those affected are significant. In addition to creating a Fostering Friendly HR policy, the only other commitment you need to make is to promote fostering to your staff at key times of the year such as during Foster Care Fortnight every May. This can be as simple as including a short article in an internal newsletter, displaying a poster or allowing us to host a drop-in information session for staff in your office.
Adopting a Fostering Friendly approach can have a positive impact on all those involved, from the child in care who is able to live in a stable and loving foster home to the employee who can carry out their dual roles confident in the knowledge that their employer will give them the flexibility and support they need.
Learn more about the Fostering Friendly initiative and how to get involved >
activereach making £1,000 donations to local charities
activereach Ltd is hosting two local charity presentations week commencing September 10th where they will be donating £1,000 to both Thames Valley Air Ambulance and Hearing Dogs for Deaf People.
The charities will deliver a talk to activereach staff about their local charity work and the activereach team will present their £1,000 cheque donations.
Extra funding to help support disabled employees
The Department for Work and Pensions has announced extra funding for businesses where more than half of employees have a disability ('supported businesses'). From April 2019, under the Access to Work programme, supported businesses will be able to apply for grants to pay for workplace support, such as adaptive equipment and job coaches for disabled employees. In addition, supported businesses that have at least one employee in a 'protected place' under the Work Choice programme will automatically receive £5,000 for each place in 2019/20 and 2020/21.
Read more about the extra funding at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/increased-funding-announced-for-disabled-people-with-the-greatest-barriers-to-work.
£5 million boost to Thames Valley charities
Small local charities across the Thames Valley have received almost £5 million from four community foundations following a record breaking year. Heart of Bucks and Milton Keynes, Berkshire and Oxfordshire Community Foundations are celebrating this great achievement.
The funding is a lifeline to grassroots charitable organisations to help them to tackle problems across the Thames Valley. The region is considered to be well off, however there are areas of deprivation throughout. Community foundations are working hard to make sure that nobody gets left behind.
The four foundations each cover their own specific region. Between them over 650 groups were supported in 2017–18, with funding totalling £4,875,000 promoting better mental health, reducing loneliness and alleviating poverty.
Local care home nominated at Housing Heroes Awards
The Crossings care home in Wendover, which provides support for three people with profound physical and learning disabilities, was nominated for Care and Support Team of the Year at the 2018 Housing Heroes Awards.
The annual awards are jointly organised by the Chartered Institute of Housing and Inside Housing to celebrate the unsung heroes of the housing world.
Local woman raises more than £2,000 for charities
Local woman Luisa Clarke, Enterprise Coordinator at Buckinghamshire Skills Hub, raised more than £2,000 in aid of the National Autistic Society and Humber Rescue by tackling the Eton Dorney Human Race Triathlon back in May.
New Chinnor & Princes Risborough Railway platform opens
The new rail interchange creates the nearest mainline-connected heritage railway, with a cross-platform interchange facility to London, being just 40 minutes from Marylebone.
The interchange was constructed by the 100% volunteer operated Chinnor & Princes Risborough Railway, part-funded by the UK Government with a £75,000 grant from the Department for Transport.
