Covid-19 Communities Update

All adults are eligible for the vaccine

Anyone who is 18 or over is now invited to book their Covid-19 vaccination appointment, and people who are 40 or over are invited to bring forward their second dose appointments (from 12 weeks after their first, to eight weeks after their first). The easiest way to book or manage your appointments is via the NHS website.

There are also a number of walk-in clinics set to take place across the county over the coming weeks. The best place to check the latest information about where these walk-in clinics will be is on Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group’s website, where you can also sort the options depending on which dose/vaccine is needed.

Attached to this email is an NHS letter, which individuals can present to NHS practitioners to ensure they will be able to have the vaccine if they do not have an NHS number, address or GP registration; information is available in English, Bulgarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian and Russian. Please feel free to pass this letter on to anyone in your community who may need this to ensure they can access the vaccine.

Regular twice weekly testing

We all need to remember that the best way to keep ourselves and our loved ones protected is by checking you’re not one of the 1 in 3 people with Covid-19 who doesn’t have symptoms. Visit the County Council’s website for information on twice weekly Lateral Flow Testing:

• Picking up a test from a local collection site
• Ordering tests to be delivered to your home
• Locations and opening hours for rapid testing sites in Cambridgeshire.

Family Fund

You may remember the Winter Support Grant from earlier in the year. One part of that was to provide food or fuel vouchers. The vouchers are Government funded and can help residents who find themselves in a desperate situation to address their immediate need with up to £50 of vouchers. If you come across a resident urgently in need of food or fuel, please refer them to us by emailing duty.communities@scambs.gov.uk. We will contact them to assess their needs and give appropriate support.

Free PPE for Voluntary Organisations

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is offering free Personal Protective Equipment for use by voluntary sector organisations. You can express your interest in this free PPE by completing this short form with a few details. A representative of DHSC will then contact you to arrange delivery. Please note that the details you provide will only be passed to DHSC, and the PPE and the delivery are both free of charge.

Child and Family Centres are open

South Cambridgeshire’s Child and Family Centres are open but require pre booking. For more information please see attached flyer.

Fund to help reduce loneliness – now open

The second round of the Local Connections Fund offers grants of between £300 and £2,500 to support community projects that focus on bringing people together (either in person where safe to do so, or virtually where that is more appropriate). Find out the eligibility criteria and more on The Local Connections Fund’s web pages.

IKEA and National Lottery Community Fund launch £1.5m fund

IKEA and the National Lottery Community Fund have launched a £1.5 million fund to grow thriving, resilient and sustainable communities. The ‘Places Called Home’ Fund offers £1,000 to £1,500 to inspire and help people get more involved in their local community as a positive, homely place to be and meet other people, building on the response during the pandemic. Applications will close upon either on the receipt of 1,500 applications or 14^th July 2021, whichever comes first.

Mental wellbeing

Positive Mental Health
Local charity Illuminate has a range of courses available to help people overcome and manage mental ill health. They offer coaching, training and facilitation techniques and their expertise is specifically in helping people to make positive and sustainable changes in their lives.  

Supporting grief and collective trauma webinar
The Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Public Health are hosting a joint webinar on supporting community recovery from the mental health impacts of Covid-19. The webinar is to take place on 12^th July from 3pm to 4:30pm and is intended for public health professionals, council chief executives, mental health lead councillors, and voluntary and community sector partners. The session will include information on learning from previous incidences of mass collective trauma, and the public health strategies needed to provide the space and opportunity for people to grieve fully for those lost during the pandemic. You can register free here.

Training and event updates

Support Cambridgeshire Connecting Communities Conference

The Support Cambridgeshire Connecting Communities Conference took place on Thursday 10^th June 2021 and explored questions of volunteer management in a post-lockdown world. If you were unable to attend and would like to view the recordings, you can watch here. 

Cambridge Council for Voluntary Service and Support Cambridgeshire

• 15^th July: Finding funding for your community  
  Hear from grant funders and put your questions to them about the projects your community would like fund.
• 20^th July: Introduction to the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service

This informal workshop aims to widen the understanding and support applications for the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service (QAVS), which is the highest award given to local volunteer groups across the UK.

• 22^nd July: Managing Volunteers Network  

A forum for those with responsibility for recruiting and managing volunteers.

• 5^th August: Working together – looking at ways of joint working
  A workshop on joint working both formally and informally, and the key questions to consider to overcome the common pitfalls. For small and medium sized voluntary community groups interested in working with other groups.

Update on Cambridgeshire and Peterborough libraries

Cambridgeshire Libraries further extended its services from Monday 21^st June to allow wider access to facilities for residents and community groups. The libraries won’t be returning to full service for the time being but will see further extensions to their current opening hours in a phased approach up to Monday 5^th July. For more information about library opening hours and services, please go to the libraries page on the County Council’s website.

Bus service changes

Stagecoach East announced changes to some of its Cambridgeshire services and timetables to improve overall reliability, from 20^th June, including the Milton Park & Ride service being re-introduced. For more information about service changes in your area, visit the Stagecoach website.

Book now for children’s summer holiday sports camps

Our popular sports-based holiday camps for children between the ages of 7 and 14 (school year 3 to year 9) restarted in May 2021, and we’re now taking bookings for the summer holidays. The cost for one child for one day is £25; if two children book, or if one child attends more than one day, the cost is £21 per child, per day. Each day’s camp runs from 10am to 3:30pm, and children can attend any one or up to all four of the sessions. Both camps are held outdoors and have Covid-secure measures in place. There are four available camps and parents can book now – please feel free to share our Facebook, Instagram or Twitter posts about this too:

• Athletics: Monday 26^th July 2021
• Athletics: Tuesday 27^th July 2021
• Netball: Wednesday 28^th July 2021
• Netball: Thursday 29^th July 2021

We will send a further community update when there is useful information to share. Thank you again for all your support.