We would like to invite you to complete Durham Community Action’s first ever online stakeholder survey!

We aim to provide the support that local communities most need and value and your views will help shape our future services.

The survey contains a total of 23 questions on the following two themes:

• About your organisation
• The value and effectiveness of DCA’s support

It should take approximately 10-15 minutes to complete.  Please note that all questions are optional, and you do not need to provide any detailed written answers if you do not have the time to do so.

The deadline for completing the survey is 5pm on Friday 9 June.

The survey is being carried out on behalf of DCA by an independent consultant, James Turner, who has many years’ experience working with voluntary and community organisations in the region.  If you have any questions about this survey or how your data will be used, please contact James at james@turnerwork.co.uk

We hope you find the survey easy to complete and look forward to receiving your response.

Would you like to support our local communities harness the power of connected, thriving and resilient communities?

This is a new role, intended to build additional capacity for Durham Community Action, in response to the increasing demands of engaging with health and wellbeing infrastructure through partnership working in County Durham.

We are looking for somebody who is enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the Voluntary and Community Sector, to work with a variety of professionals from across a broad spectrum of community-based health and wellbeing services.

The role is to develop relationships between the VCS and community groups, and outreach health and social care staff, including link workers and other professionals who are connecting people to community-based support.

To follow the celebration of Volunteers' Week (which runs 1st – 7th June) we are running a Volunteer Recruitment Fair on Friday 9th June 10.00am - 3.00pm in Durham Market Place.

Thirty organisations looking for volunteers are attending the Volunteer Recruitment Fair so you can find out how you can help your community. Download the stall information brochure here

Not sure where to start? One to one support will also be available from the County Durham Volunteer Centre hosted by Durham Community Action to find the right opportunity for you and to give general advice and support around volunteering.

Our next Understanding Safeguarding for Voluntary and Community Organisations will take place in person at our offices in Low Willington on Thursday 15th June from 10.00 - 11.30am. 

It will cover the importance of having a safeguarding policy, understanding your responsibilities for safeguarding within your organisation and what to include in your safeguarding policy.

We have two more virtual funding information events taking place in June; full details can be found by clicking on the links below:

• Monday 12th June 1.30 - 2.30pm County Durham Community Foundation
• Tuesday 27th June 11.00am - 12.00noon Garfield Weston Foundation

We have had great feedback from the sessions over the past few months and we will look to run further sessions in the future. 

This podcast focuses on energy efficiency and climate action within the voluntary and community sector.

We chatted to Nathaniel Spain, Going Green Together Project Coordinator at VONNE about their climate action initiative and Heather Liddle, Trustee at Nettlesworth Community Centre about how the community building energy efficiency grant benefitted their centre to help improve their heating systems.

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple Podcasts

The next Community Growing and Food Network Session will be online on Tuesday 20th June via Zoom.

We will be welcoming some local organisations to talk about their projects, with a chance for questions and further discussion.

The network is for organisations and community groups to make new connections, connect and share experiences.

We look forward to seeing you there. Look out for more information coming soon or contact Lyndsey.Hocking@durhamcommunityaction.org.uk  

County Durham Community Mental Health Transformation
Organisations from the public and voluntary, community and social enterprise sectors are working together with people with lived experience of mental illness to deliver the Community Mental Health Transformation programme (CMHTP) in County Durham. The aim is to transform the way in which mental health support and care is provided in local communities for adults with serious mental illness, with a focus on the whole person, not just their diagnosis and clinical support.

Over the last 12 months, people from across County Durham have been working together to develop this new model for mental health support, which will include development of a number of ‘hubs’ across the county. These hubs aim to enable smooth referrals to a range of support and ensure there is ‘no wrong door’ for people who need to access services.  This work is being led by Jo Mott, Programme Manager Community Transformation (County Durham) who you can email at: joanne.mott1@nhs.net  

The first hub, at Chester-le-Street, is now operational (read more about here) and implementation is underway at Easington and Derwentside too.  Over the next few months, other hubs will be developed through system-wide workshops held in different parts of the county, with an aim that new ways of working agreed in the workshops are put into practice very quickly afterwards.

At Durham Community Action we are engaging in the development of the most recently established hubs, linking voluntary and community organisations to the hub developments in their area and highlighting the needs of the sector.  We are keen to support ‘link workers’ to come together more formally within a hyper local setting and are starting to bring together link workers in some hub areas to enable the sharing of information to support service users and their families. 

If you are providing activities or support for people with mental health needs, then please get in touch to talk to us about how you might want to get involved, there’s several ways to do so:

• Participate in the mobilisation workshop days to help plan what’s needed in your area.
• Find out about the lived experience work that people accessing your services may want to be involved in.
• Talk to us about link worker meetings for the different areas.
• You can also connect with the hubs in Chester-le-Street, Derwentside and Easington to talk about how your services might link to new and existing referral pathways. 

If any of these interest you, please contact our Health and Wellbeing Coordinator, Susan Garrett, to find out more:  Susan.Garrett@durhamcommunityaction.org.uk or call 07951 508521.

If you want to learn more about the transformation, you can watch the NHS England summary video which explains the programme in more detail: The NHS Community Mental Health Transformation - YouTube