Gedling Borough Council’s Humanitarian Team have been leading the Council’s response and recovery work during the pandemic with a specific focus on assisting vulnerable or isolated residents. A number of projects are currently underway with partner organisations to provide support and address inequality including:
- Partnering with Rushcliffe CVS to offer a South Nottinghamshire Volunteer Befriending Service where volunteers make regular friendly telephone calls to people in the borough who’re lonely or isolated.
- Work with Jigsaw Homes to deliver ‘One Step at a Time’, a project to help local residents who are lonely or isolated and who may be feeling apprehensive about getting out and about. Volunteers are supporting Jigsaw Homes tenants to improve their mobility by walking short distances with them in their local area and improving their confidence by chatting to them. Pilots of One Step at a Time are also being delivered in other areas of the County.
- Coordination of meetings every three weeks with representatives from Jigsaw Homes, the CCG, South Notts Integrated Care Partnership, Rushcliffe CVS and Age UK to ensure mutual collaboration and strong operational coordination between commissioned social prescribing services and public sector partners during the winter months.
- A project to enhance and promote the role of local NHS Volunteers Responders in partnership with Notts County Council and Nottingham CVS. Funding has been awarded to enable us to assess the impact of the scheme locally and to use the learning to inform future collaborative VCS work.
- Virtual engagement with stakeholder groups to inform response and recovery initiatives including Gedling Seniors Council and Youth Council, Faith Leaders and Food Bank contacts. Some of the outcomes of this work include a consultation with Young People to shape services and activities in the borough, and the promotion and signup of schools and Youth Clubs to the charity Kids Against Plastic, run by two pupils at Redhill Academy.
In addition to the Council’s work to support health and well-being, Elected Members had raised just over £10,000 to provide food for vulnerable families and children in the Borough.
The Humanitarian Team lead worked with the County Council’s Children’s Services, ABL Health, Gedling Play Forum, GBC Customer Services, the Richard Herrod Centre Hub and Church and Food Bank Leaders Group to identify and provide healthy, festive food parcels to the 600 most vulnerable families in the Borough in the week leading up to Christmas.
A directory of services and organisations offering support in Gedling is available on the Council’s website and you can also email volunteer@gedling.gov.uk for more information about any of the projects listed. The team regularly produce a Community and Health and Wellbeing newsletter. Please email the team if you would like to be added to the mailing list.