Potential Difference (360G-SCVO-a0g0N00001gBLL0QAO)

Background We have operated as a constituted community group called 1st Step Café for the last 3 years and in October 2018 we became a charity registered with OSCR, as 1st Step Development Ventures SCIO. We support a weekly SMART recovery meeting and also a Recovery Cafe, which is open to everyone. Both are based at the Longcroft Hall in Linlithgow. Last year we created a lovely therapeutic cafe garden space with 6 raised beds and separate herb and fruit growing areas. A vibrant team of volunteers run both the café and garden. The café offers healthy and delicious meals, with many ingredients sourced from the garden produce. On a weekly basis the café offers free food surplus from local supermarkets to everyone attending. This has proved to be a very popular and valuable service to our communities. Our garden recently contributed to Burgh Beautiful in Linlithgow achieving Gold in the Britain in Bloom awards and to coming first in the UK "Town" Category. Over the last 2 years we have gone on to develop a new bicycle refurbishing initiative called 1st Step Bikes, based at the Linlithgow Community Recycling Centre. We are currently open 3 days a week but hope to expand to be open every day from next year. On average we work with between 15-20 people a week and we have a waiting list for people who have been referred to our courses. We receive referrals from many organisations including criminal justice teams, social work, nurses, third sector organisations and self -referral. People from all across West Lothian and surrounding communities take part in our courses. We offer bike refurbishment training courses, from the Recycling Centre, for people in recovery from addiction. The courses enable people to start to learn new skills, develop routines, make wider social connections (really important to preventing relapse) and start to rebuild their lives. We have just started to offer accredited courses through West Lothian College. Our work was recently recognised by Cycling UK, when we were awarded "Community Group of the Year" for 2018. Three months ago, building on the success of our café, we launched Mustard Seed Catering, which offers the opportunity to gain new transferrable skills and qualifications in a supported and social environment while producing food orders for a number of customers. We have quickly built a team of 7 people, 6 of whom are regular volunteers benefiting from the new opportunities. As with 1st Step Bikes we receive referrals from a wide range of organisations (social work, criminal justice, GP's, nurses and voluntary) and have a waiting list. Overview of what we would like you to fund Our established relationships with a participant group that is often isolated and alienated from service providers means that we are in a unique position to effectively provide help and advice in a way that makes a real difference. We have found that participants in our activities are often vulnerable to changes and uncertainty caused by, for example, changes to benefits, health related issues in their families, accessing employment, and access to services. For this reason, we want to carry out work to improve resilience among our participants. We would like to pilot a new project building on the success and knowledge gained through our work over the last 3.5 years. This would increase our capacity and enable our café to become a "resource hub". The hub would be a one-stop-shop for people affected by addiction providing timely support, information and skills training to meet the need for people to access services earlier and help people to take decisions that keep their lives stable and avoid crisis around – food, housing, energy, education and training, money advice, recovery, health and other support services. In order to do this we will need investment to enable us to recruit a part time resource coordinator, invest in computer equipment and support 2 sessional workers to offer resilience building workshops focusing on growing your own food and fun cooking on a budget workshops. We know that travel costs and accessibility are barriers to people attending our café and projects. The funding would also enable us to recruit and pay mileage expenses to volunteer drivers who would provide free transport to the SMART recovery meeting, café and 1st Step Bikes, every Tuesday from West Lothian and Falkirk areas. The resource hub would have a regular monthly programme of drop-in sessions supported by other organisations like the CAB to provide specialist advice and support in the safe and trusted environment of the café. We have a private space that could be used for this. Many of the people attending the café or our projects struggle to engage with service providers. Some need additional support or an individual to act as a bridge to support by sometimes "buddying" them to appointments or helping them make them in the first place. Our role would be to empower individuals and help them become more confident enabling them to access help in the future without or with less support. Also to be become more financially resilient by having better knowledge about budgeting, food growing and cooking food on a budget. How will we do it? This fund would enable us to recruit a 1st Step Hub Coordinator to work for 7 hours a week and undertake the tasks required to develop the café into an accessible and well connected resource centre, that also offers a variety of workshops to help people lead happier and healthier lives with less stress and more control around money management or other wellbeing issues. The Hub Co-ordinator would be based at the Café every Tuesday and as required and would: • Offer and promote meaningful volunteering opportunities for people targeting people affected by addiction or unemployment but open to others who want to contribute. • Recruit 3 volunteer drivers and buddies to provide transport to those in need or support to make and attend appointments with agencies. • Network with referring agencies including Criminal Justice teams, Social Work, Housing, NHS and other third sector organisations to promote signposting to 1st Step. • Develop and coordinate a rota of weekly drop in sessions for advice and support services delivered by partners (develop new partnerships including with the CAB, West Lothian Advice shops, DWP and Housing departments) on welfare, benefits, debt and money advice. • Offer one-to-one drop in confidential surgeries for people in need. • Signpost people to other support services when appropriate. • Organise training on basic welfare issues and local services for all 1st Step volunteers. • Run weekly IT training sessions for everyday life access to job hunting, CV building and benefits completion of forms. (Three laptops would be available through the funding). • Recruit a team of 3 volunteer buddies to support people to access the laptops and support the training. • Some of these tasks would develop over the year as we gain more knowledge through regular reflection and evaluation meetings with our Development Manager. As well as the 6 new volunteer roles we hope to engage with around 6 people each week who will access the IT training and 8 to 10 people who will access the advice and support drop in surgeries. Sessional Gardener and Training Chef The funding would also enable us to recruit a sessional gardener and a training chef who would work together to make the most of the garden produce. We would support our gardener and training chef to develop and pilot suitable learning workshops based in our community garden and café. Over the year we would offer a total of 4, 6 week long "grow your own food" workshops. We anticipate 6/8 participants to take part in each course so we hope to engage with at least 24 people over the year. In addition over the year we would offer a total of 4, 6-week "fun and easy cooking on a budget" workshops. As well as recipe ideas and tips we would look to include how to feed yourself and family for a week on a budget. This would help people plan and apply their knowledge over a longer time frame to really help people benefit. We would anticipate that 6 to 8 people would take part in each set of cooking workshops so we would hope to engage with an additional minimum 24 people over the year. Why will we do it? After discussions around changing needs with our community and partners and the potential to better meet and bridge these, we have identified an innovative opportunity to build on the strengths and networks of 1st Step (including 1st Step Bikes and the Mustard Seed) and develop the capacity our 1st Step café to become a valuable "resource hub". This will be a one-stop shop to provide information and support to people affected by addiction. Our local work highlights that welfare reform is impacting upon people in many different ways, and at different rates. It is important therefore to stay on top of what is happening locally to understand what help people may require, how our service can meet their needs, and to raise awareness of support that is available. It is clear that many of the people that attend our café and other services are affected by poverty and welfare reform. They have to make choices about which necessary costs to spend their money on, fuel, food, clothing, bills or other demands. 1st Step Café and our other projects are well used by people affected by addiction from across West Lothian and Falkirk. The Café has a weekly footfall of between 25-50 people. 1st Step Bikes engages with around 15-20 people a week with new referrals every 6 weeks. Our new project, the Mustard Seed works with around 7 volunteers but engages with other community projects working in West Lothian and Falkirk who also work to mitigate the effects of welfare reform and poverty. Most of the people involved in our work are on low incomes and are increasingly being affected by benefit changes and living in poverty. Many access food banks (we are referring agency) and are increasingly struggling with welfare reform. Many of the people involved in our activities are in the early stages of recovery and still affected by chaotic lifestyles. They struggle to engage with service providers or other forms of support. By using our existing community networks, peer support, activities and trust that has been built up over 3 years, we are in a unique position to be able to provide the additional support necessary to mitigate the impact of welfare reform. Our current capacity is limited, but a Resource Coordinator would enable us to network with a range of other support services, so that if we do not have the answers, we would be able to confidently signpost people. People that have mobility issues, or where transport is a barrier to engagement, would be able to come to the café and attend the SMART recovery meeting, eat a nutritious lunch and access valuable information that could prevent people falling into serious debt, lose their tenancy, relapse into addiction. These approaches will ease the costs of everyday living for local people and increase income by ensuring that people are claiming all the benefits they are entitled to and are better placed to use modern IT to be successful in job hunting. Who will benefit? People (individuals and families) affected by addiction across West Lothian and Falkirk would benefit from the new resource hub. We work closely with Steptogether a local support group for friends and family of those affected by addiction. We benefit from family and friends attending the café and social activities run by the café. However, the hub would also welcome anyone who is involved or interested in 1st Step's activities. Interaction between different people opens many doors and promotes integration and access to new social networks, which are the building blocks to recovery. Where will the work take place? The hub would be established in Linlithgow but cover West Lothian and Falkirk. Currently we have people attending the cafe and activities from across these two Council areas. Some of the people travelling have free bus passes issued by their workers, but for some people costs or length of journey through public transport is an issue. We would offer free transport to people where this is a barrier to accessing our services. This new support will make a huge difference to many people. We also hope to negotiate the use of a minibus from another local voluntary organisation.