As we come to the end of 2022, we look forward to our 2023 Thriving Communities programme. This bumper edition of the bulletin has everything from monthly information sessions, funding webinars and after the success of our first connector session, another opportunity to join us for networking in February. Once again, we are keen for colleagues from both the referrer and provider aspects of the social prescribing pathway to join us to make useful local connections and build strong local relationships to strengthen social prescribing services. More information on these events can be found below.

In this bulletin, we also highlight financial wellbeing and funding, as well as celebrating those who were able to get onto Arts Council England 2023 - 2026 Investment Programme. We also have a huge selection of events below, including a free conference from The King's Fund. 

As always, if you’ve stories to share, questions about social prescribing in the region, or events and activities we’d love to hear from you. Email the team:
northeastyorkshire.thrivingcommunities@nasp.info

The Social Prescribing team at VONNE

Photo L - R: Sarah Marrison, Social Prescribing Engagement Manager; Jane Hartley, NASP Thriving Communities Regional Lead; Sara Toal, Health and Wellbeing projects coordinator. 

We are pleased to share our upcoming, varied programme of learning, development and support activities looking forward over the next four months, providing opportunities to discover, develop and connect around social prescribing.

We recognise that 2022 has proved to be an extremely challenging year for the VCSE sector and we hope that the programme of meetings, networking sessions, learning activities, and webinars will offer something for everybody, and will enable us all to reflect and refocus ready for the challenges ahead.

What helps when times are tough?

We are all working, volunteering, and leading in extraordinary times. Recent years have been extremely challenging for all of us, and now we're facing the cost-of-living crisis, difficulties recruiting and retaining staff, and increased demand for our services. These pressures affect our organisations, us and our teams, and the people and communities we serve.

When times are tough, it really helps to:

• Have time to think on your own and together - to process and make sense of what's happening, reflect and decide what to do/take action.
• Look after yourself and each other - to cope and protect yourself and be able to help others.
• Make a plan - to focus on what's most important and not do too much.
• Be organised and work as well as you can - to make the best use of your time.
• Understand how we cope and what happens to us in uncertainty.
• Connect and be with others - to know you’re not alone and for mutual support.

Our forthcoming Thriving Communities learning and development activities been specially designed to think about what can help when times are tough and provides a menu of support for you to pick and choose what will help you most.

Do you have questions about social prescribing, how it works, how it is funded, and who is involved in the North East, North Cumbria, and Yorkshire?

Starting in December we will be hosting monthly Social Prescribing Information Sessions. These informal sessions, hosted by Sarah Marrison, are designed to help you find your feet, and identify useful contacts and ways forward in a supportive small group environment. See below to book your place: 

• 14th Dec session 
• 11th Jan session 
• 8th Feb session 
• 8th March session 

Between January and March, we are offering three 75-minute thematic online learning sessions delivered by our learning partner Yes We Can CIC. The sessions will be participatory and will focus on the following three themes, providing insight, support, and practical tools to help you. Click on the links below to register a place at each session.

• Leading well in uncertainty - Thursday 26th January, 1.00pm – 2.15pm Registration Deadline: Friday 20th January. 
• Looking after yourself and resilience - Tuesday 14th February, 1.00pm – 2.15pm  Registration Deadline: Monday 6th February. 
• Communicating openly and effectively - Thursday 23rd March, 1.00pm – 2.15pm  Registration Deadline: Friday 17th March.

Action Learning sets are a series of facilitated group discussions where participants of the set present real-life challenges, and through listening and the asking of open questions by the other set members, the presenter can reflect and develop a new action plan to address their challenges.

This short video produced by the School for Social Entrepreneurs explains well how Action Learning Sets work and what participants gain from them.

If you would like to participate in an Action Learning Set starting in January, please register your interest - Please note, participants will need to commit to four sessions as they will be meeting with their peer set once a month between January and April. Registration Deadline: Monday 9th January 2023.

Connector Session

Following our first successful Connector Session last week, we will be hosting another opportunity for VCSE staff to meet and network with colleagues doing Personalised Care roles (Social Prescribing Link Workers, Health and Wellbeing Coaches and Care Co-ordinators).

This virtual session will take place on Tuesday 21st February 2.00pm – 3.30pm on Zoom in partnership with Regional NHS England colleagues. The event aims to mimic a face-to-face networking event, with short informal introductions and then focusing on facilitated breakout discussions to help support collaboration across the social prescribing pathway. Register here.

Webinar – Sustainable funding models for social prescribing

We know this is one of the hottest topics when supporting VCFSE organisations providing social prescribing opportunities, so in March we will host a Thriving Communities webinar focusing on funding opportunities and the development of sustainable social prescribing models. This event will be promoted in our January bulletin, so watch this space!

It has been a busy month behind the scenes within the Thriving Communities regional team. In addition to hosting two online events; our Thriving Communities Project Showcase webinar on 1st November, and our VCSE and Link Worker Connector Event last week, we have been supporting new and existing network members such as Specialist Autism Services in West Yorkshire, and Northumberland Wildlife Trust around developing their social prescribing offer, funding models, and connecting them to useful contacts within their local Integrated Care Systems.

We have continued to engage and collaborate with a wide variety of partners and organisations (such as NHS and ICS reps, VCSE social prescribing link worker host organisations, Natural England, Sport England, Local Authorities, Local Infrastructure Organisations, etc) in meetings around themes such as children and young people, mental health, green social prescribing and active travel to name but a few. And there are some exciting developments and pilot projects about to launch in our area which we can keep you posted on in future bulletins.

We attended the Durham Community Food Growing Network (contact lyndsey.hocking@durhamcommunityaction.org.uk for more information) to advise about the support Thriving Communities can offer, to signpost to useful resources and other support organisations. It was also a great opportunity to learn more about VCSE groups working in the Durham area to help inform work we are doing with a number of key partners developing and mapping green social prescribing providers.

As it is important to keep abreast of best practice, we also dipped into the Personalised Care Interprofessional Education Network (PerCIE) International Conference, run by the Coalition of Personalised Care which brought people together to share innovative thinking and research from practice that can help make a difference to future workforce development to enhance health creation in our communities.

The Project Showcase in November brought together a selection of the organisations funded within the North East and Yorkshire who presented their impact, highlighted learning from working in place-based partnerships, and discussed how they are moving forward to develop their legacy work to ensure there is sustainability. 

The event speakers included Cheryl Gavin - Helix Arts, Emma Tregidden - Space2 Leeds, and Abi Conway - Thriving Together Northumberland, who gave such rich and informative presentations. We would like to thank them and everyone who came along to take part. Presentations and webinar from the event can be found below. 

Presentations: 

Introductory and closing slides by Jane Hartley.

Cheryl Gavin - Helix Arts 

Emma Tregidden - Space2 Leeds

Abi Conway - Thriving Together Northumberland

We would like to thank everyone who has taken part in our Thriving Communities events throughout Autumn-Winter 2022. Throughout this difficult time, we really appreciate your attendance and continued interest. Our programme will continue into the new year, we hope to see you at our next events and activities in the near future. 

Merry Christmas and all the best for 2023!

£383 million new funding for the North has been announced as part of Arts Council England's 2023-2026 Investment Programme. The announcement and details of the new national portfolio shows that Arts Council England will distribute £383.5 million to 282 organisations across the North over the next three years, ensuring that more people will be able to enjoy art and culture in the places where they live.

78 organisations are new to the portfolio. Many are based in places which have received less cultural funding in the past and where there have been fewer opportunities to access creative and cultural activities.

Congratulations to everyone who received funding. One of the new additions, Northern Heartlands, were spotlighted in our previous bulletin. On twitter they said:

We are SO delighted to have found out today that we'll be joining the @ace_national National Portfolio in 2023. Thanks to everyone who has supported us on our journey so far - we can't wait to work with more communities & partners in #COUNTYDURHAM & the #NorthEast

Congratulations to Northern Heartlands! Find out more about their projects and connect with them via social media.

You can find out more about all of the organisations who received funding. You can also find all of the data and watch the promotional video for the 2023-2026 Investment Programme. 

Alternatively, you can recap the full live announcement.

Credit to Arts Council England for this image.

NASP have published a new guide for Primary Care Networks (PCNs) in partnership with the Money and Pensions Service and as part of Talk Money Week. The guide includes how to include money guidance or social welfare legal advice within PCN's social prescribing offer.

The guide lays out the benefits of using the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme, to either hire a Social Prescribing Advice Link Worker or use the services of an organisation like Citizen’s Advice. Social Prescribing Advice Link Workers differ from Social Prescribing Link Workers, as they can actually offer financial advice, rather than signposting to other services.

Credit to the National Academy for Social Prescribing for this image. 

With the increase in personal finance related news and ongoing cost of living pressures, there continues to be a demand for financial wellbeing work with parents and training for professionals who support them.

The Money and Pensions Service is working with Campaign for Learning and Quaker Social Action to expand their training programme for professionals who support parents across the UK. The training is free and open to organisations across the UK. 

This funding is designed to help local voluntary and community groups continue to support people in need throughout Winter as the demand for services rises. There are three strands to the funding - Emergency Support, Prevention (warm & welcoming spaces) and Building Resilience. These strands have been brought together in to one fund to try and reduce the amount of time local groups spend on writing applications. Please note, the majority of funds need to be spent by end March 2023 as the focus for the fund is supporting Calderdale residents through the Winter.

There is £226,950 available with contributions from - 

• Calderdale Council
• West Yorkshire Combined Authority via the Mayor’s Cost of Living Emergency Fund
• Community Foundation for Calderdale.

You can apply for one, two or all three strands of funding if your organisation is eligible. Apply online before the closing date for applications on Friday 9th December 10am. 

General practice teams have expanded significantly to include a wide range of healthcare professionals working together, including Social Prescribing Link Workers, Health and Wellbeing Coaches and Care Coordinators. It is important that patients understand what all members of the general practice team do and how they support their care.  

NHSE have produced a range of digital and print materials about the general practice team, as well as a toolkit, which are available to download from the Campaign Resource Centre. The materials aim to support general practice teams to share information about the different professionals working in their practice and explain how they enable patients to receive the most appropriate care as quickly as possible. 

Wednesday 14th December 2.30 - 4.00pm

NENC ICS have now had two meetings to create the foundations for the community in September and November. They felt it was important to maintain and build on this, and so there is another get together before the end of 2022. 

At this session you will:

• Connect with other people who are driving improvements in health and care across NENC.
• Hear the latest updates in our care system quest to 'be the best at getting better', including improvement priorities and plans.
• Help shape the development of the learning and improvement community.
• Be able to participate in some light-hearted seasonal improvement fun.
  

Tuesday, 10th January 2023, 9.30am – 11am 

In this session NASP reflects back on the October 2021 Thriving Communities webinar 'Financial wellbeing and social prescribing', reviewing how the current financial wellbeing climate has changed.

This webinar will offer tips and advice on how to talk money with the people that community groups and link workers work with and support.

Speakers include Sarah Murphy, a Senior Health, Social Care and Welfare Systems Strategy Lead for the Money And Pension Service, and Damon Gibbons (Executive Director for the Centre for Responsible Credit) in his role as Project Lead for the Financial Shield pilot. You will also hear examples of how these projects impact communities from Link Workers and Social and Financial Advice Link Workers.

VONNE, as the North East regional VCSE infrastructure support organisation, is proud to be the regional lead for the National Academy for Social Prescribing (NASP) Thriving Communities programme in the North East and Yorkshire. VONNE is delivering the programme alongside regional VCSE infrastructure partners across Yorkshire and Humber, and North Cumbria.