Our Community Services reflect on last year and look forward to the rest of 2023
As we settle into 2023, our Community Services teams take a look back at highlights from last year and what their goals are in the coming months.
We spoke to our teams based in Nottingham, Newcastle, Essex and Teesside. Each of which are made up of a dedicated group of staff and volunteers that help isolated older people reconnect with the world and lead a fulfilling life.
We wanted to hear in their own words how they had helped older people in their communities, so we asked each team what they felt had been the most important events and achievements of 2022. We then asked them to look forward and tell us what is coming up this year.
Newcastle and Teesside
The Newcastle and Teesside teams all contributed to give a joint answer.
What were your favourite moments/events of 2022?
“There are too many to mention. Newcastle Pride was amazing and so was our first Moneywise event in partnership with St Martin’s in Newcastle!
“The Summer Afternoon Tea sessions for our older people both in Newcastle and Middlesbrough were a huge success.
Last year, Independent Age introduced Community Hugs with Community Ventures through our Community Services teams. These drop-in sessions are a response to the cost-of-living crisis and enable locals to access support and advice on a range of issues while socialising in a warm and safe space.
Attendees have the ability to craft, shop and enjoy boardgames at no cost while also receiving useful information from organisations such as Mind and the local fire services.
“Creating our first Community Hugs event in Middlesbrough has been rewarding and the recent BME awards also in Middlesbrough were equally meaningful, as they showcased the brilliant work done by all of our partners and highlighted the growing presence of Independent Age. More recently, we have enjoyed hosting our Christmas parties and giving hampers out to more than 100 older people in the North East.”
What are you most excited about in 2023?
“We are excited to continue this journey of awareness raising and growing our support for individual older people. We are planning to expand our Community Hugs events to other areas in Middlesbrough and Newcastle, in order to increase our referrals and engage with more local communities. In the last six months of 2022 we attended lots of events in the North East and plan to attend even more in 2023.
“We plan to continue running our Moneywise workshops on a quarterly basis, encouraging input from local agencies and communities to ensure it remains up to date with local needs. We will also run joint ‘Wise’ sessions with Safer Communities and Mind to expand our reach.”
How do you expect Community Services to change in 2023?
“We expect services to change and expand as need arises and we will be keen to offer our support to new initiatives both in-house and externally. We expect volunteering to grow to support our Hugs initiative and the introduction of the Get Involved role and short-term volunteer project volunteers. With a holistic volunteer offer, we hope to provide a comprehensive community service that enables older people to thrive.”
Nottingham
From our Nottingham team we spoke to Kate Duncan, Community Services Manager.
What were your favourite moments/events of 2022?
“We had a great turn out of 45 older people for our Jubilee celebrations in partnership with Radford Care Group. The event consisted of an afternoon tea, and an open mic session in which Denis Robinson read a poem — always a star of the show. Denis has become quite a star for Independent Age over the past few months also recently featuring on our BBC Lifeline appeal and also raising awareness of scams in an article featured in the Daily Express and the Mirror towards the latter end of this year.
“More recently we have started running monthly Community Lunches in partnership with the Monty Hind Centre. The lunches are prepared by a group of young people with learning needs and disabilities called Chop It Like It’s Hot. This is a great partnership as it gives the older people time to socialise intergenerationally. The young people have an opportunity to hone their skills in cooking, ‘serving’ customers and working towards personal development and employability.
“We started hosting our Moneywise workshops towards the end of this year with around 53 attendees. These have been delivered in partnership with organisations such as Step Forward and the Welfare Rights Service.
“These workshops take place directly in the heart of community where the cost-of-living crisis is affecting people most, in partnership with organisations like St. Ann’s Advice Centre and the Meadows, Queens Walk Community Centre and at our Community Lunches. Further partnerships will be made next year with more workshops delivered to a whole host of community groups. We also have plans for other workshops that will look at advice about scams and digital workshops to support people to get online, set up an email, use banking apps etc.
“Lastly, we were proud to work in partnership with Nottingham City Council to ensure that older people facing hardship received fuel vouchers over the winter period (£147 per household). Between October and December we processed more than 300 people amounting to a value of just under £40,000.”
What are you most excited about in 2023?
“In Nottingham, we are linked up with many new strategic networks in the city such as Tackling Loneliness and the Financial Hardship network. This will give us great opportunities to develop our community work to meet Independent Ages’ priorities in the coming year.
“The Nottingham team are looking forward to developing many new partnerships that address poverty such as working with Fareshare East Midlands and to support health and wellbeing in partnership with GreenSpace, a network of providers that offer green social prescribing opportunities for people in accessing nature and green spaces in and around the city.
“We are also looking forward to working closely with the Renewal Trust and St Ann’s Advice Centre who have just received a cost-of-living grant from Independent Age.”
How do you expect Community Services to change in 2023?
“In Nottingham we will be doing a lot of scoping and mapping of particular areas that are going to be particularly impacted by the cost-of-living crisis. This will give us opportunities to improve the quality of life for people in those specific communities.
“Nottingham consists of many diverse communities, and we are aiming to reach out to many more people, to ensure that our work is inclusive and engages people with different cultural needs and backgrounds. We also want our cohort of volunteers to reflect this diversity in the work that we do in 2023.”
Essex
From the Essex team we spoke to Scott Cole, Services Administrator.
What were your favourite moments/events of 2022?
“We had a busy year in Essex, attending events including taking part in Colchester’s Big Week festival and supporting many older people through difficult times.
“From an administrator’s point of view, I enjoyed speaking to the older people referred to our Community Services here in Essex. Getting to hear their stories and then trying our best to help them. This may be through our amazing caseworkers, or other local charities/organisations, that can give them the support they need.”
What are you most excited about in 2023?
“In Essex, we are looking to go into a new area of the county in 2023. We have one of our team moving into a community development role. She intends to work in the town of Basildon. The aim is to continue our Moneywise workshops and introduce sessions on some of our other popular information guides, such as scams and housing. The aim will be to host these workshops across different towns/areas.
“For me personally, I am looking forward to seeing how we will continue the fine balance of working on a 121-support basis as well as in communities, with our development work. It will be interesting to see how the Basildon area will add to our team’s great work. My personal aim is to try and help our referrals remain up, and we have some ‘irons in the fire’ on how we intend to do this.”
How do you expect Community Services to change in 2023?
“At Independent Age, we’ll continue to respond to the issues that older people are facing, especially as the cost of living continues to cause stress and anxiety for many. As a team, in Essex, we just want to help as many older people as we can, directing them to where they can get the support they need.”
A huge thank you to the Community Services team for speaking to us and for all the great work they do in their communities.
If you’re interested in finding out more about our Community Services or if you are interested in volunteering with them, you can read more here.
