Announcements

Emergency response toolkit

This Heat-Health Alert (HHA) action card summarises the suggested actions that the voluntary and community sector should consider to prepare for and respond to each HHA alert type:

actions to consider all year round to support summer preparedness

actions to consider for pre-summer readiness and summer preparedness

actions to consider for a yellow alert

actions to consider for an amber alert

actions to consider for a red alert

Free new digital platform to help charities recruit the next generation of volunteers 

To help grow volunteer participation and mobilise the next generation of volunteers, Royal Voluntary Service has secured £5 million pounds of funding from players of People’s Postcode Lottery to develop a major new digital volunteering platform.  

Small Charity Week is here, and it's a great excuse for us to pay tribute to the work done by small VCS organisations both here in the borough of RBKC and further afield.

Taking place this week are a number of training sessions and webinars aimed specifically at small charities.

To kick things off, you can find a calendar of training sessions for small charities run by a number of different organisations, along with additional resources, news and thought pieces.

Urbanwise London are holding weekly volunteering sessions at Canalside Activity Centre for people to come along and help clean up the area around the canal. 

This includes litter picking on the path and by bell boat or kayak for those interested, gardening, and an opportunity to meet new people.

No previous experience is required.

One Million Mentors (1MM) is a new mentoring initiative - all about helping young people grow into the best version of themselves. It's a no-pressure, judgement-free space to get support from someone who has work experience and can see things from a new angle.

With a mentor's help, benefits include improved employability insights, confidence, and better clarity for the future. Various skills are developed through mentoring with a variety of benefits contributing to empowerment, wellbeing, and social connectedness.

After mentoring:

Listen Up have published a new report on Testing learning on Adultification in Child Safeguarding Practices in England.

Adultification refers to the concept of notions of innocence and vulnerability not being afforded to certain children. Outside of the home, adultification is founded within discrimination and bias. This issue significantly impacts marginalised and vulnerable groups in our society, particularly Black children and those from less heard backgrounds.

Open Age is looking to coordinate as many fun, informative, energetic classes and workshops as possible, across RBKC, Hammersmith & Fulham and Westminster boroughs for Silver Sunday. 

Silver Sunday is a national event day, where we celebrate the older community of 60+ by providing free events, on and/or around Silver Sunday.  This year, Silver Sunday will be on 5 October, and free activities can run the few days on and around this date.

The council have published their fairer action plan for 2025-2029, laying out an approach to tackle inequality and build a fairer borough. 

Find out more about the council's equality objective and 5 equality aims, and read the full plan here.

A resource to raise awareness about careers in the NHS, including lesser-known jobs and professions in healthcare. 

NHS Careers Untapped features podcasts, videos and recorded webinars aimed at young people and career advisors, covering roles such as;

- Clinical Associate Psychologist 
- Peer Support Worker 
- Pharmacy Technician 
- Operating Department Practitioner 
- Digital Learning Manager  
- Therapeutic Radiographer 

From Durham University:

"After another long period of ups and downs and twists and turns in the voluntary sector, Third Sector Trends is back to find out what’s going on.  We’d really like you to take part so that we can build a better picture of what is happening in London.

Many of you will have helped with this research before and if you’re a new organisation, Durham University are just as keen to see what you do, how things are going and what you’re achieving.