- EVOC

Cheques and Cupboards

25 July 2023 By EVOC Comms Leave a Comment

by Tracy Baird (Voluntary Sector Organisational Development Worker, EVOC)

I caught the volunteering bug when I was 16 and have worked in the sector on and off since, so I know what it is like to wait for a funding letter. The sense of doom mixed with excitement at what might be inside. Would it be a ‘we regret you inform you’ letter (you know, the ones you only have to read the first few lines of) or the one that we hoped for?

I open the letter carefully, hoping for precious cargo inside and… yes! A cheque! Excellent! That was about 8% of our annual funding secured…

Fundraising was hard in a small, local charity. The entire project depended on money to keep it going. The young people depended on it. Our jobs depended on it. As the manager I felt the pressure and knew if I thought about it too much I would be tempted to hide in a cupboard and pretend I didn’t have to deal with it.

It was cheque or cupboard.

I would have loved to meet with funders face-to-face to wax lyrical about the project I was so passionate about. But we were stuck with combing through other organisations’ annual reports to see who they were funded by as well as approaching the funders who had kindly supported us before. But it was hard, hard work and there often seemed to be more ‘regret to inform you’ letters than cheques. And the cupboard become all the more tempting.

I may have a new job, but still know that fundraising is hard. And in these turbulent financial times it is getting even harder.

That’s why I’m excited that one of my first big projects at EVOC is managing a ‘Meet the Funders’ event – 10am to 2pm on Thu 28 Nov 2023 at Norton Park Conference Centre.

A space where you can come and meet funders face-to-face.

A chance to wax lyrical about the project you are passionate about.

And we’d love to hear what you would like from this event, so please take a few minutes to answer these 6 simple questions.

More information and booking links will be coming your way soon. We can’t wait to see you there!

A Message From Mike Massaro-Mallinson…

27 June 2023 By EVOC Comms Leave a Comment

I’ve recently had the honour and responsibility of being appointed Interim Chief Officer for the Edinburgh Integration Joint Board, to lead the Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership.

As one of my first priorities I want to reach out to the great organisations we work with to make Edinburgh a better place to care and be cared for. I know that the work you do to support our communities is so important to achieving that goal. As some of you already know, I started my career in the third sector and experienced first-hand how many people and their carers rely heavily on community services to stay safe, independent and healthy.

Without a third and community sector I know that people would be more socially isolated, would not be as connected with their community, may be unable to stay in their own homes or just may not cope with life.

You may be aware that we have launched an improvement plan for the Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership in response to recent inspections. As part of our plan, prevention and early intervention is one of our priorities in year 1. We therefore want to build on the work of our Community Mobilisation programme and the Edinburgh Wellbeing Pact and develop our early intervention strategy. Working with organisations across Edinburgh will be crucial to success and we are building on what we have and already getting started.

You will hear more soon, if you haven’t already but just wanted you to be aware of our direction. I am very much looking forward to working with you in my new role.

Community Wealth Building in Edinburgh

3 May 2023 By EVOC Comms Leave a Comment

By Bridie Ashrowan (Chief Executive, EVOC)

Ahead of the First Minister’s Anti-Poverty Summit today, EVOC were part of a Members Meeting last week to input on behalf the communities of Edinburgh and I hope our input, collated with the thoughts of the Poverty Alliance network, helped shape the event and this briefing. It outlines the actions that EVOC and the Alliance membership think should be prioritised to tackle poverty in Scotland; the support that is required for the third sector; and the key outcomes that should emerge from the First Minister’s anti-poverty summit.

How do Poverty and Community Wealth Building (CWB) relate? At EVOC, we have advocated for a place-based approach to be part of the approach to poverty. To support that place-based approach is inclusive and ambitious, and the reason we see Community Wealth Building as part of it is with the evidence that has come from places such as Preston – the most improved city the UK, lifting people out of poverty, as measured by the university there.

[Read more…]

Adult Protection is Everyone’s Business…

14 April 2023 By EVOC Comms Leave a Comment

by Marion Findlay (Director of Services, Volunteer Edinburgh)

Adult Protection is an issue for everyone who works or volunteers in the voluntary sector. Whether you are delivering a specialist mental health service, running a charity shop, managing a community garden or involved in any one of our sector’s thousands of activities in the city – the eyes, ears, skill and experience of your team can be vital in keeping people safe from harm.

A recent joint inspection of Adult Support & Protection in Edinburgh by the Care Inspectorate, Healthcare Improvement Scotland and HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland identified that the voluntary sector plays an invaluable and vital role in supporting adults at risk of harm.

[Read more…]

Representing the Third Sector at Buckingham Palace

21 March 2023 By EVOC Comms Leave a Comment

by Michele Mason (Area Manager, Change Mental Health and Chair of Edinburgh’s Mental Health Forum)

EVOC were asked by Edinburgh’s Lord Provost, Robert Aldridge, to nominate someone from the 3^rd sector to attend the Loyal Addresses by Privileged Bodies event at Buckingham Palace on Thu 9 Mar 2023. EVOC nominated myself as Area Manager for Change Mental Health and as the representative from the Health and Social Care Partnership for the work we have achieved in Edinburgh.

So, the early alarm at 4am was a struggle, but I was fortunate as some of my fellow travellers had further to come than from sunny Leith. With a very deserted Waverley station to greet us, off we went on the 5.40am ‘Flying Scotsman’.

My travelling companions were:
– Robert Aldridge (Lord Provost, City of Edinburgh)
– Steve Brown (City Officer, City of Edinburgh Council)
– Joe Goldblatt (Emeritus Professor)
– Heather Yang (Core Services Manager, Volunteer Edinburgh)
– Debora Kayembe (Rector, The University of Edinburgh)
– Hanna Beaton (Branch Holova, AUGB Edinburgh)

Weather warnings had been issued, and rightly so, as by the time we passed Dunbar all we could see was snow. Just under an hour late, we arrived in a very wet Kings Cross, by now we realised that this was a very special event we had been invited too. Quick snack and off to the Palace we went.

Once we deposited our coats and umbrellas it was off to get our name badges and a beautiful programme – to see all of our names in the booklet and those of other people that you usually only see on TV was really something.

We were in the gorgeous ballroom with the Countess of Wessex String Orchestra playing a selection of music- as the room stated to fill; you could feel the excitement in the room.

1:15pm: The King arrives. There were 27 addresses with the Archbishop of Canterbury being 1^st. Our Lord Provost was 9^th, we were all on the edge of our seats, but we need not have worried Robert was fantastic!

After the last ‘Address’ and the Kings response, it was off to the picture gallery for the Reception. I don’t know what I was expecting but it wasn’t what happened. Lieutenant Colonel Johnny Thompson gathered the Edinburgh group together and within about a minute, the King was standing with us all chatting and shaking our hand, asking us all who we were and what we did. He wanted to discuss with me the impact on peoples mental health due to the pandemic.

This felt very surreal, as it felt almost normal, a nice man having a pleasant chat with everyone – loads of eye contact and open questions, what could have felt uneasy or nerve wracking wasn’t, as the King made us all feel so at ease.

As he moved on we realised just how many people were in the Picture Gallery that we could chat too – again another once in a lifetime opportunity. So Debora and I took a wee wander – first person we spotted was Sadiq Khan – Mayor of London – a very interesting discussion around politics in London and Scotland. Followed by Lord Patten ex-governor of Hong Kong. We spoke about how I remembered Lord Patton leaving Hong Kong aboard the Royal Yacht Britania with his 2 dogs – whiskey and soda – and how the Yacht is now berthed in Leith where I stay.

Dame Katherine Grainger, chair of UK sports, Sir Menzies Campbell ex Liberal leader, the Governor of the Bank of England, Dr Andrew Baily were just some of the many, many people we were able to speak to.

As we wander the room, we realised that the rest of our travel party were doing the same, spotting people they wanted to chat too and them to us. As it was nearly time to leave we regrouped and chatted about what a day it had been, cloakroom for coats and umbrellas and out to the Mall.

Traveling back to Kings Cross we realised that the Palace staff had kindly put my very wet umbrella in a Buckingham Palace gold carrier bag, what a memento. Arriving at the station, we discovered the train we were due to take had been cancelled so it was rush to get on the next available service. We got into Waverly Station 18 hours after our departure with a sense of relief that we had made it back through the snow and weather warnings. But it was also with a sense of amazement at what a day it had been, a privilege.

Link Working – more important now than ever.

3 March 2023 By EVOC Comms 1 Comment

By Community Link Workers, Calum Barry (Health All Round) and Rebecca Goodman (Caring in Craigmillar)

Social prescribing is an approach for connecting people to non-medical sources of support or resources in the community which are likely to help with the health problems they are experiencing.

There are various models of social prescribing in place across Scotland. Many of these involve a social practitioner, often referred to as a link worker, social prescriber or community navigator, who works with people in a holistic, person-centred approach to link the individual to local resources. 

Having been in post as Link Workers since 2017 we have experienced many changes in the role and the way it is received.

We have expanded from 4 link workers to 24 and now cover 45 practices across Edinburgh. We have seen services come and go, peoples’ needs change, and even worked through a global pandemic.

In the beginning, when the role was just getting established, of course we received lower referrals and our caseloads were smaller. This gave us the luxury of time, time to network with other services in our local areas and time to work more intensively with individuals, accompanying them to new groups and activities.

As the service developed and reputation grew, we saw huge increases in referrals and our caseloads expanded. A great result but with it of course comes less time and an impact on what we can achieve for people.

However, along with a change in referral numbers we also seen a change in need, a shift from supporting people to access social activities and wellbeing supports, to assisting more with basic needs such as financial issues, housing, welfare rights, and access to food banks.

Although we are not a crisis service, increasingly we find ourselves working with those that are in crisis now.

It can sometimes feel far removed from the days of accompanying someone to an art group or cooking class. These things do still happen but it may take multiple appointments to get to this outcome and we may not have the capacity to commit to this.

People struggle to consider attending a group they might enjoy which could benefit their mental health, if they can’t afford the bus to get there, wonder if they will have money to put the heating on, or are worried they may be facing eviction next month.

Link Workers can help them to access the services they need to help tackle these huge priorities, so they can then have the capacity to start thinking about the other stuff. Without having link workers and other services within the GP practice teams some of these vital links may never have been made.

People’s needs are greater than ever and so the Link Worker role feels more important now than ever before.

Matching the Needs of Third Sector Organisations with NHS Suppliers

8 November 2022 By EVOC Comms Leave a Comment

By Stuart Barrie, Operations Manager, Voluntary Sector Gateway West Lothian

This is a wee blog to fill you in on the Community Benefit Gateway (CBG).

In the simplest of terms, it’s a platform set up to connect NHS suppliers to third sector organisations that may need a hand with something.

How does it work?
Organisations like charities or community groups highlight a ‘need’ – could be painting a building, fitting a carpet, donating equipment or even good old volunteering. That ‘need’ goes on the Community Benefit Gateway website and if any NHS supplier can help with that need – they do. Simples.

Now I know what you are thinking. This is too good to be true. But that really is exactly what happens.

It’s free, gets help where it is needed and companies that supply the NHS, give back to communities across Scotland. Everyone’s a winner!

There’s a few other bits and pieces in the process, like registering on the platform and identifying what your need is – hopefully it’s something someone can help with.

Find out more
To learn more about the Community Benefit Gateway and how your organisation can get involved, we’re hosting an online info session (Tue 6 Dec, 12noon – 12.45pm).

It’s for voluntary and community organisations across Edinburgh and the Lothians who think they could benefit from support in the form of work or equipment.

We’ll be chatting about what you can and cannot ask for through the Gateway and offering you the chance to ask questions too.

Register now

Ukraine…the long road ahead

21 September 2022 By EVOC Comms Leave a Comment

by John Beaton-Hawryluk, Ukraine Crisis Response Programme Coordinator (EVOC)

It’s a little under seven months since the war started by Russia on Ukrainian territory at 5am on Thu 24 Feb.

It was an escalation of the war that started in 2014 in the Donbas region and with the annexation of Crimea.

In the weeks and months leading up to the day of invasion, it was clear something was happening.

There was intelligence of an attack, Russian troops were gathering near Ukrainian borders and political leaders from the G20 were making hurried visits to Kyiv and to Moscow, to assess the situation – throwing their support behind Ukraine and attempting to broker peace before what was about to unfold.

In the months since, we’ve seen nearly 7,500 Ukrainians seek safe refuge here in Edinburgh.

Coming from all corners of Ukraine, Ukrainians have started to quickly settle into their new communities, working in local employment and accessing the wide range of public and voluntary sector services across the city.

Since the City of Edinburgh Council’s call to action six months ago, the voluntary sector has been pivotal to the response of Local and National Governments. Whether it be the Volunteer Edinburgh Community Taskforce supporting the welcome desks at travel hubs, local employability providers providing Ukrainian focussed job programmes or local food providers ensuring no one goes hungry – the voluntary sector can be very proud of what has been achieved in such a short space of time.

As the crisis in Ukraine has unfolded, EVOC has been involved in weekly partnership meetings to ensure we are ready to offer support on every level for the people arriving in our City. These meetings also include representatives from Scottish Government, City of Edinburgh Council, Edinburgh Health & Social Care Partnership, Edinburgh Airport, Scottish Refugee Council and other key partners. EVOC’s particular role is to support the strategic and practical responses needed in vital areas of work such as Children & Families, Food Provision, Funding and Mental Health & Wellbeing.

As the Response goes beyond six months, it is important that we ensure it has the resilience to respond to the challenges ahead and make sure that the Ukrainian community is properly supported. With the support of Scottish Government, Baillie Gifford, University of Edinburgh, City of Edinburgh Council and One City Trust we are pleased to have confirmed four new response specific posts across the voluntary sector:

Volunteer Edinburgh: Anna Nevmerzhytska – [email protected]

Supporting the coordination of the community taskforce volunteers at travel hubs and coordinating volunteer drop-in sessions to support Ukrainian clients to access volunteering.

Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain: Tanya Balanova – [email protected]

Coordinating community activities at the Ukrainian Community Centre and making referrals to partner agencies who can support clients.

Capital City Partnership: Nika Kozak-Herzallah – [email protected]

Supporting Ukrainian clients to access and promote employability provision in city.

Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations Council: John Hawryluk – [email protected]

Supporting and coordinating the voluntary sector to contribute to the city-wide Response and advocate to City of Edinburgh Council and Scottish Government for additional resource on behalf of the voluntary sector.

These new roles will work across the Ukrainian community and wider response to support access to volunteering, employability and support agencies as well as supporting the voluntary sector to connect with the Ukraine Crisis Response in the City.

If you, or your organisation, want to discuss how you could engage with the city’s response to the Ukraine crisis please get in touch [email protected] or reach out to one of the team to find out more.

A one of a kind, life-changing service in Scotland: Reflections on Milestone Intermediate Care Unit

16 June 2022 By EVOC Comms Leave a Comment

by Dr Gerry Mitchell (a social policy researcher)

“I came here so broken and uncertain, and the beginning of this journey started in room 9. I am leaving with so much hope and determination for the next chapter.”

In two bungalows set back in a quiet road of the city, an intermediate care service comprised of a ten bedded residential home called Milestone (MICU), was created, at pace, in response to increased pressure for Edinburgh’s hospitals to make effective use of beds during the pandemic. The Waverley Care staff who run Milestone , and their partners, have supported over 80 people experiencing homelessness or at risk of experiencing it, since the crisis began. It has enabled them to isolate, recover from acute interventions and access the multi-disciplinary support that will enhance recovery and enable a successful discharge to safe and appropriate accommodation.

The service has since established itself within the system of local care, support and housing and has a track record of achieving remarkable outcomes. Last year, EVOC was commissioned to write a business case to keep Milestone open and I was recruited to work on it. Many hours of interviews and meetings followed: time and input generously provided by Maria Arnold, EVOC Senior Development Officer, the Milestone steering group, and staff from Waverley Care, Edinburgh Access Practice, the Cyrenians, The Royal Infirmary, NHS Lothian Public Health and Harm Reduction Team and others.

Reflecting on my experience of the evaluation, four aspects stand out:

1. People using MICU experience the most extreme health inequalities and barriers to health intervention in our society.

GP John Budd was one of the first steering group members I spoke with. He had been instrumental in getting the service started. As a GP at Edinburgh Access Practice, a specialist surgery for patients experiencing homelessness, with a one stop shop of services including welfare rights workers, community health workers and addictions care, John talked me through an audit of his patients in 2018, who had similar profiles to those people who had stayed at Milestone. The statistics are shocking. The average age of death was 46.5 years for men and 41 years for women. Their health profile was comparable to that of a general population cohort in their 80s. Equally shocking was that many causes of death among people experiencing homelessness are reported to be from treatable conditions (Field et al, 2019).

Interviewing John and others instrumental in setting the service up, such as Claire Mackintosh, Consultant in the Royal Infirmary’s Infectious Diseases Unit, it was clear that individuals experiencing homelessness experience a range of barriers to receiving timely, effective healthcare intervention. They often need to negotiate numerous and complex referrals systems. While they may be seen by a number of different services, there may be duplication and unmet needs/gaps. They experience higher acute hospital admission rates than the most deprived cohort of the population (Waugh et al, 2018), with twice the Accident and Emergency attendance rates. They may also stay in hospital three times longer than the most deprived cohort, reflecting ongoing and unaddressed care and housing needs (Homeless Link, 2014). Shockingly again, one study found that 70% of people experiencing homelessness were being discharged from hospital back to the streets without having their housing or ongoing care needs properly addressed (St Mungo’s, 2017).

2. Specialist intermediate care units reduce secondary health care costs (and are likely to do the same for housing costs)

When step-down intermediate care services are introduced, they result in lower A&E visits, more effective planned discharges and reduce the average length of inpatient admissions. Between April 2020 and April 2021, 43 step-down referrals to MICU were patients from NHS Lothian acute sites who, without Milestone, would have stayed in hospital. This was a saving to NHS Lothian of 240 occupied acute hospital bed days, a total of £156,720.

Patients with experience of homelessness have 60% more outpatient appointments when compared to a most deprived cohort but are estimated to miss 28% of them. However, with ongoing contact with a hospital in-reach service, one large-scale study found that they attended twice as many appointments. This leads to engagement with, for example, follow-up endoscopies, procedures, and treatment such as surgery or cancer therapy (Field et al., 2019.)

Managing the transfer of care and planned discharge into sustained accommodation is also key, not just the exit from the acute sector (Cornes et al 2021). On admission to MICU, 50 out of the 80 people who have stayed there, had no fixed abode or were in temporary housing, while eight could not return to their tenancy. On planned discharge from MICU, 83% moved into sustainable accommodation. The MICU is therefore likely to provide significant savings to City of Edinburgh housing services associated with the reduction in temporary housing costs.

3. Barriers created by the NHS and other services may reinforce the trauma

Rachael Kenyon, at Cyrenians, manages the MICU hospital in-reach team at the Royal Infirmary. She and her colleagues make the initial contact with potential residents of Milestone while they are still in-patients there. They manage the patient’s referral and also support them throughout their time in the MICU and on into sustainable accommodation. Development of trusted relationships with people using the service is a vital element of facilitating successful engagement with a range of health and social care services. Rachael explained the adverse consequences of stigma in a clinical setting. Patients may be discharged rather than having their transfer delayed[1] or pain medication may be withheld due to judgements about substance use. Changing the cultural attitude to patients both with an addiction to drugs and/or alcohol and who are experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness, is an explicit objective of the service. And Rachael and her colleagues’ roles include modelling trauma-informed practice to their colleagues in clinical settings.

4. Trauma-informed multi-disciplinary practice delivers successful outcomes

The staff I met during my time working with Milestone are committed to its work. They approached the evaluation from a desire to improve their own practice in order to further support the people they work with. Central to that is to acknowledge the barriers present in their own organisational cultures and processes and address them through multi-disciplinary working, training and other reform.

During the interviews with MICU partners, I gathered some remarkable lifechanging success stories of those who had been supported at Milestone. Some were the result of some very effective short-term interventions but, more often than not, they were the result of people knowing that, on discharge, they could return to Milestone if needed. That it was there for them longer-term. And, equally, they knew that if they did return, they would continue to receive consistent, trauma-informed support. The evidence compiled for the Milestone Intermediate Care unit business case has demonstrated that an overreliance on short-term performance indicators and viewing individuals as inputs and outputs to a system doesn’t work with this complex and marginalised group of people.

_{[1]And this is confirmed by evidence elsewhere. For example, Cornes et al. (2021).}

You can read the full evaluation on the impact of Milestone here

Keeping The Promise for Edinburgh’s Children

23 May 2022 By EVOC Comms Leave a Comment

by Keith Dyer, Quality Assurance and Compliance Manager, Education and Children’s Directorate, City of Edinburgh Council

You may recall that back in 2016, the First Minister made a commitment that Scotland would “come together and love its most vulnerable children to give them the childhood they deserve.” She commissioned the Independent Care Review to look at what needed to change to give young people the best support. Between 2017 and 2020, the review team worked to figure out how to keep that promise. The aim was to identify and deliver lasting change in Scotland’s ‘care system’, leaving a legacy that will transform the wellbeing of infants, children, and young people.

About the care review
In February 2020, the care review’s work reported on their work. One of the reports, The Promise, sets how we, in Scotland, should change the way we approach supporting children and young people who are in care whether that’s living with their grandparents or an aunt, in foster care or getting support in their family home.

So, what does this mean for us, working in Edinburgh?
A great deal of the Promise’s focus is rightly on making sure we do the best to support families to keep children at home and in their communities. For children and young people who cannot live at home with parents – known as being care experienced – Edinburgh’s Promise has a vision that Edinburgh’s children will be loved, safe and respected. This will mean a clear focus on the right support, at the right time for families, for as long as they need it. Edinburgh’s Promise is the delivery arrangements for the transformational change that keeping the Promise require and is part of the Edinburgh Children’s Partnership. Keeping Edinburgh’s Promise will take the involvement and effort of all colleagues, teams, services and organisations working with Edinburgh’s Children and their families.

Edinburgh’s Promise and what you can do
Our 2021-2024 Promise Plan was built on five fundamentals:

what matters to children and families
listening
poverty
children’s rights
language

These principles could end up meaning different things to different colleagues in Edinburgh, whether they are in services providing direct support to children and their families, or indirect support to those services.

The Edinburgh’s Promise Fundamentals paper unpacks what these fundamentals mean for all of us in Edinburgh, and what delivering on them looks like at a personal, team, service, and organisational level. For example, ‘what matters to children and families’ is about supporting that the child and their family’s needs, rather than delivering what the service usually ‘delivers’. The poverty fundamentals include not blaming or judging people for not having enough money to live on.

For all colleagues, they offer a tangible and meaningful guide as to what keeping Edinburgh’s Promise entails for them in their day-to-day work with Edinburgh’s children and their families.

Please take time to read the fundamentals paper and consider with your teams how you will apply them and what changes you may have to make in your Organisation to keep Edinburgh’s Promise.

If you and your team would like to hear more at first-hand about Edinburgh’s Promise and what it means for your organisation and services, please contact Keith Dyer: [email protected]