Message from CVS Falkirk CEO Jen Kerr on COVID-19

A message from our CVS Falkirk CEO Jen Kerr on the current COVID-19 pandemic:

Dear colleagues,

We have had a really busy and inspiring week because of all of the amazing kindness and compassion taking place across Falkirk. I apologise that we’ve not been in touch properly before now.

Below is an update on what we are doing to support and enable your efforts.

Please be patient with us while we re-assemble and get organised! But I want to reassure you that there is an incredible amount of support being mobilised across Falkirk’s communities and that we are working hard (from home mainly) and listening to what you are telling us you need to do that.

Over the next 2-3 weeks we intend to be up and running with the following services:

Information on local activities and coordination points: We have been collating information and contacts by area on which groups and individuals are organising local responses to Covid-19 to support neighbours, families and vulnerable people.
- We will be grouping this information into ‘local action sheets’ and sharing it with anyone and everyone who will find it useful. We hope to have these on our website early next week.
- We are creating an online web form so anyone can be added to the lists promptly and we’ll update this information resource daily.
Links with Public Sector Planning:We are working with public sector colleagues to gather and collect information on their points of coordination. Request to date for this from the sector are around food, transport, essential workforce, volunteering and accessing information on vulnerable persons in order to connect this with community action and vice versa.
- We are hearing there is a desire to have a local community led coordination point in most communities. We will connect with local resilience planning partners to identify any local coordinator points that might already be in place and likewise we’ll work with those on the local action lists to ensure this information is well known and what this type of role might perform for them locally.
- We are helping to find ways to identify safe and legal ways that vulnerable people can be identified and supported through the third sector while respecting their rights and safety.
Funding Information and Support: Various sources of one-off Covid-19 funding sources are quickly becoming available to the sector.
- We are in communication with the funders and will post and circulate information on accessing this funding as soon as it’s available.
- There will be money specifically allocated to Falkirk from the Scottish Government and from Falkirk Council to support your work.
- As part of a network of local Third Sector Interfaces, we are participating in a national effort to encourage existing funders to be flexible on their restrictions and permit a change of use whenever possible.
Communication with Third Sector: We will continue to post regular updates and information on our website, in the third sector online forum, and via social media (Twitter and Facebook)
Volunteer Recruitment: We will be working in partnership with Falkirk Council to open up a central volunteering inquiry point to assist with putting local people in touch with the various groups and efforts currently forming across Falkirk. This service will also assist to re-deploy staff and volunteers across public and third sector organisations and to match volunteers into the activities you need volunteers for. We hope this will support the possible workforce issues expected from Covid-19. We will contact you regularly to see how your volunteering numbers are and where you need further assistance.
Volunteering Management Support:We expect you will be overwhelmed with a lot of volunteers contacting your organisation over the next few weeks. We are writing guidance on good practice to manage and make best use of this for your planned activities. We have skilled staff able to support you with this quickly. We are also on hand to answer your questions about PVG and risk management in your volunteering programme. Likewise, we’ll be working with partners to produce guides to safe volunteering and keeping vulnerable people safe in communities.