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Networks and Partnerships

Maps Murmurations Project: Where Generations Meet

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Since last autumn, CCVS Volunteering for All has been working in partnership with Cambridge City Council and a range of community organisations to deliver a creative, intergenerational project that celebrates connection, place, and wellbeing. Partners have included InCommon, Find Your Wild, Active Life Team at CCC, Museum of Cambridge, Cambridge Room, Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination, and others interested in the project.

The project was developed in response to growing awareness that people of all ages—older adults, young people, and everyone in between—can face barriers to getting outside and engaging with their community. Frailty, social anxiety, lack of confidence, or simply the absence of nearby friends or family can prevent full participation in everyday life. This initiative shifts the focus from vulnerabilities to strengths, experience, and local knowledge, creating opportunities for connection, activity, and shared learning.

Creating Connections Across Generations

The project brings together people from different generations to explore what Cambridge means to them. Through collaborative activities, participants share stories, experiences, and perspectives—building new memories and enhancing both physical and psychological wellbeing.

Young people from local schools volunteered and participated alongside older residents from council-supported housing schemes. Activities included creative sessions, group discussions, and supported local walks across various city wards. The outcomes—artworks, stories, and reflections—contribute to community-created maps showcasing Cambridge through the eyes of its residents, young and old.

 

GET group – what does the future look like?

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CCVS, and now Support Cambridgeshire, took over the GET group when the original charity closed. We want to see the network continue but also want to ensure it is meeting the needs of the sector and our partners. As such we are doing a bit of work on how things could work moving forward. This article sets out some of our initial thoughts and we will be asking all those signed up to the GET group for their views.

Where we are now

We continue to run the network but have moved meetings to quarterly online, this replaces the in person meetings of the past. Part of the rational for this is that the meetings were Cambridge centric and the GET Group is a county wide network. Online allows people from everywhere to attend, it saves people time but it does not support the same level of networking and updating from groups.

We have closed both the GET website and the Facebook page as both were unused, there is a GET holding page on the CCVS website.

We have set up a google form that allows groups to share what they are doing. This has been used by a small core of organisations and we have seen a drop off in people adding to it.

We have started an email newsletter that goes out after each meeting and we can also send alerts about time limited issues like funding and consultations.

We ran an online conference that shared a number of events over a week that were skills/employment related.

We have not continued with the adult learner celebration event.

Moving forward

We want your views on what will work for you around the learning and skills agenda.

We want to continue the networking meetings, but should these still be quarterly and should they be online or in person? We also want to know if the content works for you and how you think the networking could be improved without everyone wanting to share at every meeting.

We’re considering how a resource section on the new Support Cambridgeshire website could give us somewhere to store important documents and things that may be of use to you.

We want to run some sort of annual event, this could be an in-person conference or a celebration event. It could also be a more hybrid series of events and could be linked to ‘learning at work week’ or ‘lifelong learning week’.

We want to do more to demonstrate the impact the VCS has around skills, employment and guidance. This could include a celebration event but could also include sharing learner stories and impact reports. This could resemble the volunteer stories we share on the Volunteer Cambs website.

We want to look at how we develop formal partnerships or consortia that would allow the sector to bid for bigger pieces of work that would not be possible for individual organisations to deliver. A fantastic local example of what can be achieved is Fullscope.

There is more we can do around a number of other areas.

  • Digital badges and how we can promote these to learners and to employers
  • Apprenticeships in the voluntary sector
  • Internships in the voluntary sector
  • Work experience in the voluntary sector

Conclusions

The VCS is a bit of a sleeping giant when it comes to guidance, employment and training. Many organisations are working to equip individuals to build the skills and confidence they need to find work or take part in learning. We know the importance that volunteering can play in this process. We have the trusted relationships with individuals and communities that others lack.

There are opportunities available now and there will be more in the future that we need to be in a position to grasp.

The question is how can Support Cambridgeshire and the GET Group facilitate this – over to you to help us.

What’s in a name?

My final question is does GET group mean anything to people?

Should we become something more like the ‘Cambs employment and skills network’  – again over to you.

Please complete the survey below – just a few quick questions so that we can ensure that we, as the GET Group and Support Cambridgeshire, are providing the support that you need and want.

Thank you.

If you have any queries or comments, please email: enquiries@cambridgecvs.org.uk

A missed chance to make a real difference to volunteering

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So RVS are developing a multi million pound national volunteering site that will “supercharge” falling volunteer numbers around the UK by widening access and removing barriers. See here.

I have had to wait a while to write this as an angry response based on pure emotion was not needed. Safe to say that I am really not in favour of this approach to how we encourage more people to volunteer. You can get a hint of my view of national projects that usurp local initiatives here (1) Thank you for not asking, but we do not want a national volunteering platform. | LinkedIn

This is another unwanted, unnecessary project that will fail to have any real impact. We need to look at local solutions even if they are a bit messier, make a slightly less impressive headline and could be more complicated to fund.

We know a local solution works

We worked in partnership to build two local platforms for Cambridgeshire (Volunteer Cambs | VolunteerCambs!)  and Peterborough  (Peterborough CVS | Go-Vip) for less than £100,000 and this included a multi-year licence. Since the sites went live we have been working tirelessly to promote them despite the fact that we are still looking to raise money for a staff team to fit around the platforms. Up until now we have used some area specific funding and our core funding to make the sites work as the sector and our funders recognise the impact that this approach has.

I have heard figures of between £4 and £5 Million mentioned for the national site. If we say a local site costs £100K to build, this would have paid for between 40 and 50 sites, so that could have funded one site in every county in England (there are 48 ceremonial counties Counties of England – Wikipedia)

I am not saying that each site has to be based on a county, but the argument is that this money could have enabled local sites to be developed where they don’t exist and supported existing sites where they do.

We are proud of Volunteer Cambs and we know that other organisations are proud of their sites. We have worked hard to promote the site and to build the numbers of people and organisations using it. We collect local volunteer stories, attend local events to promote volunteering, work with local partners in the VCS, statutory and business sector to promote volunteering and the site. We are working with the elected mayor, with the health system and with all our district and county councils to get them to invest in volunteering and to help them understand that volunteering builds communities, helps people’s wellbeing and can be an important route back to work.  The site is only the nut in the walnut whip of work we do around volunteering, but it is essential. It is our showcase, our brand and only works because of everything we and others do to build local relationships with local people and organisations to promote local opportunities.

I argue that volunteering is a local activity that needs local relationships. How will a national site develop these without stepping on the toes of local CVSs and volunteer centres? Will they be asking us to promote the site? If that is the plan I will save them the email to us as we will not promote it, and in fact we will actively be saying to groups that we talk to, not to use it but to use our site.

What would a solution built on partnership look like?

I am not totally against national projects, but they need to compliment and add value to the work happening locally, especially when related to an activity that is about local relationships. As such I propose funding a national site that links through to all the local sites, this could be a map where you clicked on the area and a simple postcode/place-based search function that takes you to a local site, this is a simple, cheap and fairly static website that could be looked after by an organisation like NAVCA.

The remaining funding should then be spent supporting and funding the local sites. Expertise already exists in the sector about the existing different platforms and how sites can be promoted, and I know that there would be an appetite to share those experiences as we benefitted from those who went before us.

The national site would allow national campaigns like Big Help Out etc. to have a single national link, but this would then help people and organisations to find their local site. The national site would allow me to find possible one-off volunteering opportunities if on holiday and looking for something to do. It could be the catalyst around Volunteers’ Week. It could be what the celebrities promoted, or the influences shared. This sort of national site would add value, it would amplify what the team here do, as well as all those other teams across the country. It would a real partnership and a real bonus.

The new site as it is proposed will not do this, it will detract from local work, it will confuse the public, it will have a negative impact on local relationships, and it will make my life so much harder as I try to raise the money we need to encourage more people to volunteer across Cambridgeshire.

There could have been an investment that would have elicited cheers from local organisations and those working tirelessly to support and promote volunteering, but instead all we hear are howls of outrage and concern.

I had thought better of the People’s Postcode Lottery, they stress that they are about local connections; their move to unrestricted funding and their local focus is great, but that positive view has gone.

You only had to ask. Speak to us, speak to our national bodies, we could have articulated a solution that would have been a win for you, a win for local solutions and a win for local people.

So what now?

We will continue to promote our site.

We will continue to encourage more people to explore all the benefits of volunteering.

We will continue to support groups in all aspects of volunteer recruitment and retention.

We will continue to support those who may have barriers to volunteering to overcome them.

We will continue to work with local business to promote volunteering that benefits them and the communities they are based in.

We will continue to work with statutory partners to ensure volunteering is a part of how they achieve their aims.

We will continue to struggle for funding.

We will not however promote or support this national site.

A response to the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Independent Commission on Climate initial report

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Introduction

The Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Independent Commission on Climate website states that the commission

was created by Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority in 2020, on the recommendation of the Combined Authority Board. The task of the Commission is to provide authoritative recommendations to help the region mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change, enabling us to meet the commitment to eradicating net carbon emissions across the area by 2050.

More about the commission can be found on the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority website, including who the commission members are and more details about what they hope to achieve.

The commission has recently produced its initial recommendation report, and this is the response to the recommendations.

This response from Cambridge Council for Voluntary Service (CCVS) addresses some issues about the process and the makeup of the commission, and does not address the detailed recommendations that the report makes.

We at CCVS are not qualified to speak about the ambition or impact of the recommendations, but we fully support the need to make a significant and radical difference to how we use energy in the short, medium and long term in order to reduce the impact of climate change.

We believe that climate change poses a significant risk to Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, and the wider planet, and that we all need to look at what we can do to reduce this.

Individual and community action will be key

Whist it is essential that government at all levels brings in the necessary legislation and funding to make change happen, and whilst it is essential that business of all sizes makes changes to their energy use, a significant part of addressing the need to reduce non sustainable energy use will fall on individuals.

The engagement of residents is particularly important: the Climate Change Committee estimates that almost 60% of the changes we need to reach net zero will involve people changing their behaviour to some extent and making positive decisions to support emissions reduction.

The report is clear that

In the CPCA area we have over 350,000 existing homes that will need to be converted to low carbon heating

It also has a target that there will be a

Reduction in car miles driven by 15% to 2030 relative to baseline

The desire and ability of individuals and communities to make major changes to their lives to address climate issues has to be there or we will not reach the targets that have been set.

These changes to lives have to be done in a way that does not increase the already considerable inequalities that exist across the county.

The report recognises this but must do all it can to ensure that any changes are

Delivered through a just transition, that does not leave marginalised communities behind.

Recommendation

Any changes, proposals or ideas have to be measured against an equality index to ensure that no one is disadvantaged.

Where is the community engagement?

My first issue with the commission is that the voice of the community and the community sector is not represented at the highest levels of the commission.

If the last 18 months have shown us anything it is the ability of communities and community organisations to deliver real support and services based on local need and local knowledge.

It was individuals and small charities that reacted quickest to the outbreak of the pandemic, it was communities and community organisations that found solutions to help those in need, it was these groups that marshalled and motivated an army of volunteers to deliver.

All this was done before the government at any level was able to start to help out. What then emerged was one of the most equal partnerships between communities and small organisations and local government that has been seen. This delivered the support to those who needed it.

Recommendation

  • That the commission invites a new member from the local community or charity sector to become a full member.
  • That a local network of other organisations and groups that have an interest is formed and resourced to feed views to the representative.

The report recognises that

There are ways in which individuals, families and communities can contribute positively to this change

The commission has to find a way to get a voice from this level heard at the highest level.

We need new community solutions

Radical change is needed if we want to avoid the impact of climate change. To achieve this we have to work in true partnership across all levels of community and government.

Legislation and top-down solutions will only change so much. It is only through co-production that significant changes in how we live and work can be developed and become the new normal.

There have to be resources put in place to allow communities to identify how they can address issues; new ways of working have to be embraced and power has to be moved to the local level.

The commission has to address this if they are to take individuals and communities on a shared journey to a shared destination.

Recommendation

That the Commission look at how power, resources and wealth can be given to, and retained by, communities to allow them to find local solutions that work.

Conclusions

Many people will have ideas and views on this, and as the report highlights this is a topic close to the hearts of many in the area.

Residents responding to both surveys wanted to see council leadership on climate change, nature prioritised, improved education and information to support behaviour change and a leading role for the area nationally. A strong engagement and listening programme will be needed to ensure residents are both keen and able to make the changes needed.

We need to make sure that there is wide engagement and that this is about more than listening, but about devolving power and resources. CCVS are not the experts and it is not for us to comment on the practical way forward.

We will do all we can to play our part as an organisation and as a membership body.

What we can, and will, do is to push for all voices to be heard, not just through consultations but also at the highest levels of the commission.

The solutions that local, regional and national governments come up with have to be co-produced with communities and individuals if we want to see real change in how we live.

A top-down approach will fail, and will also increase inequality and leave marginalised communities more impacted by climate change etc.

The importance of having an inclusive and representative board of Trustees

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Something I have learned working with people with additional needs, mental and physical health issues, and those who are facing isolation and hardship, is that they are the real experts of their condition.

They are resourceful and use everyday creativity and innovation to manage and overcome their difficulties.

They might not be aware of their potential and finding the right support often means they are finally able to explore possibilities they could not see before.

Once they see that, they are capable of really making a change, for themselves and for others too, involving people with similar experiences on their journey.

We charity workers are people who have dedicated our professional lives to helping others, giving them the support, but also the choice and the trust that they need most. We believe in their abilities to rise above challenges because otherwise, we would not do what we do.

Every day I see the impact of hard work with clients. I see them embracing a journey which improves the quality of their lives, fights isolation and loneliness and improves skills. I feel proud.

Having somebody fighting their corner, the battle is not as bad with an ally. I also see that one of the fruits of that work is for clients to want to give back in a way they received help.

They want to volunteer, to be an active part of the community they belong to. They want to use the strength that you helped them build, to help others.

And I personally believe that we should encourage them to take that path as far as they can because they can really make a difference.

Many groups already understand how having people with lived experience of the issues their clients face, on the board of the trustees, is an incredibly positive asset for the organisation.

They can deeply understand the needs of the people the charity wants to help, assessing how things are done from their perspective, but also appreciating the work that everyone is doing behind the scenes.

Most importantly, they can bring a creative, innovative, problem-solving attitude that is a powerful feature for a trustee. They will be the advocates, the champions and the example to look at for your service users.

Undertaking such a role can be incredibly rewarding, but also challenging. The board of trustees and staff should value and recognise the unique knowledge that comes with lived experience.

This, although different from professional know-how other board members might have, is just as important.

It will be a sustainable and efficient way to make sure the group is achieving the best possible results, with a board of trustees that really can represent the heart and soul of the group.

This week is Trustees Week and now more than ever I would like to thank all those who are giving their time and sharing the knowledge and skills of their lived experience in Trustee roles in our groups.

I would like to encourage those who have not yet recruited trustees who can really empathise with their clients, to consider the option.

Happy Trustees Week everyone!

Serious violence duty in health workshop

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Voluntary sector perspective

Before we develop new projects that often have externally imposed deadlines it is important to find out what is already happening, to hear the voices of the individuals and communities that may be impacted by the work, and at the same time take time to familiarise yourself with what other organisations are doing in that area of work.

Introduction

This blog has been written to share the experience of attending the first ‘Health Serious Violence Needs Analysis Workshop’. CCVS attended on behalf of Support Cambridgeshire but also as a member of both the Cambridge Community Safety Partnership and the Souths Cambs Community Safety Partnership. The workshop was held in July 2023.

Serious violence duty

This meeting was set up to look at the health response to the serious violence duty. More info can be found on this from the government website.

In essence, this duty makes councils and local services work together to share information and target interventions to prevent and reduce serious violence.

It is issued by the Secretary of State as statutory guidance under Chapter 1 of Part 2 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. As a significant statutory organisation, this applies to the Cambs and Peterborough ICS who have to have a strategy in place that addresses their actions against the duty.

The meeting

There were a lot of health people at the meeting who had different roles around safeguarding and a scattering of attendees from other statutory partners.

My feeling was that there were far too many gaps in the wider attendance and this was possibly down to a mixture of who was invited and who prioritised and attended the meeting.

It was unclear what the Integrated Care System (ICS) was trying to achieve and the impact they wanted to come from the meeting.

There was a commitment to a ‘public health’ approach to reducing serious violence which I believe means that it is about looking at the causes and how we can prevent the violence from occurring.

Despite this, the solutions presented did not reflect this and were very much more reactive after the incident.

The meeting presentation was excellent and did cover a lot of ground around the causes of serious violence and also included some case studies, both national and local that looked at real-life stories of people who had been impacted by violence.

There was also some good discussion during the meeting, especially in the Teams chat.

At the end of the meeting, there was a chance to move into breakout rooms to look at specific ideas for projects.

This allowed suggesting and discussing options other than the ones presented, and the room I was in was productive.

My impressions

My overriding impression was that the ICS need to spend some time getting up to speed with what others are doing around serious violence before they commit to anything. There seemed to be little understanding at this stage of the work that Community Safety Partnerships (CSP) were doing especially that the Cambridge CSP has serious violence as a continuing priority and has been working on this for a number of years. More info on the council website.

The ICS were keen to do more research to get the figures and data that helped to understand serious crime and it was pointed out this would be a waste of time and money given the work of the county council research team and the excellent reports they provide on this for the different CSPs.

Other attendees pointed out that the ICS could best contribute to the research by encouraging the sharing of data from the bits of the health system that have traditionally not been shared.

In this area, this would mean getting appropriate data from the East of England ambulance service and data on serious violence from Hinchingbrooke Hospital.

We spent a good deal of time looking at violence and young people and again the importance of youth work and the first 1000 days of life were pointed out.

I pointed out that we have seen statutory youth services slashed over the years and that the excellent work of charities such as Romsey Mill or Connections Bus Project can not replace this.

We spoke of the wider impact of serious violence on mental health etc and again there was talk of the difficulty of getting support, in one case study the only totally positive experience of the victim was the service they received from a charity – Victim Support.

At all other points of contact whilst there were good parts there were negative experiences as well. It is essential that we recognise the work of local charities working with younger people to support them with wider impacts of serious violence and when I mentioned Centre 33 and the wider Fullscope partnership it appeared that too few in the ICS knew of these essential services.

My overriding fear from attending this meeting was that.

  • There was insufficient understanding on the part of the ICS on what impact they wanted.
  • There was no understanding of what the wider system was doing and had been doing for a long time.
  • There was a danger of reinventing the wheel and duplicating work around research.
  • There was a preferred set of outputs that were an easy win but that I, and other professionals in the meeting, believe would have little impact even if they could be implemented.

I think that the ICS had been backed into a corner on this due to ridiculous timetables imposed on them. I believe that they would be interested in a more radical approach that had a greater impact if they could have more time.

I also believe that time constraints withstanding the ICS and the staff leading on this were totally aware that they needed to find out more and were more than willing to work in partnership across the wider system and with the voluntary sector.

What I would like to see happen

These are the author’s thoughts and ideas and have not been discussed with the wider sector or partners. 

There is a lot being done to address all aspects of serious violence by statutory partners and local charities, but we are not seeing any real decrease in a number of incidents in many areas.

It is vitally important that we all work together to address all forms of serious violence, but I think we have to embrace the public health approach and look to some more innovative solutions that start to address some of the causes and triggers to the violence.

We have to understand that these solutions may not have the same ability to measure the impact and savings that many funders and organisations crave.

We also have to recognise that not everything tried will be a success and that projects will need to be able to adapt or even end and that there is learning in that.

Finally, there has to be a commitment to be in this for the long term, a one-year or two-year project or programme is not going to be enough, we need to invest in the long term and embed these innovative ideas into business as usual.

I think that given the time frame of this funding, the ICS would be setting itself up to fail if it introduced a project that had no sustainable future.

Instead, I think it could best use the funds and the time in two ways.

1. Help the system to understand

This would be about research and information. It should include making sure all parts of the health system are supplying the data to a central place (I think the county council research team) and that there are funds to help enhance the analysis and reporting of this data so that it can be used by all partners.

In other words, build on the reports that the CSPs already get and use.

I also think that there is an opportunity to do more work with those impacted by serious violence. This is about real listening and understanding, and about building trust and relationships that help to examine what are the causes and what those impacted think needs to change for them and their communities to address the issue.

2. Design a new approach to solving the problem

This is potentially a risk if continuation funding can’t be found or if the approach can’t become business as usual. I think that this approach should build on listening, should be about that preventative public health approach and should be truly multidisciplinary. The work with individuals, families, and communities must be done by them with support from the team.

It has to be based on real relationships and trust, it has to be non-judgemental, and it has to work in a voluntary and not mandatory way.

I don’t think that the approach has to be developed from scratch as there are undoubtedly examples to learn from, but it has to be something that local partners can sign up for and that is tailored to and appropriate for Cambridgeshire.

Conclusion

Once again there are issues of unfeasible timeframes, short-term funding leading to short-term ideas, and a complex system which has seen unprecedented change and broken relationships. These lead to a lack of opportunity to radically innovate and a missed opportunity to start to do things differently.

We know that more of the same won’t work. We know that throwing good money after bad is not sustainable. We know siloes only make problems worse and positive outcomes less likely.

We also know the power that communities and individuals have to make change if they are supported and resourced. We know the difference that working together can make in sharing expertise and understanding. We know that relationships are important both across services and more importantly with those that the services are working with.

There is an opportunity here to take a bit of a risk and to do things differently, and if we don’t things will get worse and not better.

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