Development and Liaison

Development

SCVS supports the identification of needs in the local community and facilitates improvements in service provision to meet those needs.

We aim to support organisations and community groups to function more effectively and deliver quality services. 

Some of our primary areas of work to meet these core services include:

Community Development

Helping people to recognise and develop their ability and potential and organise themselves to respond to problems and needs which they share.   Our community development team are able to deliver a range of community development projects to meet your organisation’s needs. In the past these have included; Community Involvement to 8 new Swale Children’s Centres, Family Learning Buddies for Adult Education,  Research and production of a Breast Feeding Directory, Community Services Contract with Swale Borough Council.

Monitoring and Evaluation

Helping organisations with the tools to collect information and assessing it in a method that inform strategic decisions, thus improving the project in the future. For more information on evaluating outputs, outcomes and impact of a project please click link to Measuring Success page

Quality Assurance

Practical support in helping your organisation in gaining a quality assurance standard. eg PQASSO. For further information please contact office@swalecvs.co.uk 

Partnership working

Linking organisations together for the development of effective partnership working. SCVS has developed and maintains a large network of partners across the local area. For more information please click link to Connecting Communities page

Training

For more information please click link to Training page

Funding

This year has seen over £600,000 brought into Swale via successful grant applications that were identified using the Grantfinder service at SCVS. For more information please click link to Grantfinder page, In addition to Grantfinder SCVS also offers direct support for funding that comes in the form of Bid writing training courses that are available upon request and a great way to train multiple members of your organisation or in an active Bid writing service where a member of our team will identify potential funders for your projects and compile to bid for your organisation to submit. In the last twelve months our team have successfully gained £224,187 of funding for local groups. We can offer this service through a number of packages and for more information click link to Funding Support page

Swale Community Empowerment Network

For more information or to view previous SCEN bulletins please click link to SCEN page

Project Management

For more information please click link to Project Management page

Staff Secondment

Our experienced staff team are able to offer secondment cover for organisations that may be requiring extra support or to deliver specific pieces of work. This option allows the organisation access to additional staff without the complications of employment. Our secondments have included;  Acting Managers, Reception cover, Administration support, Community Development Workers / delivery, project support, arranging conferences. We are able to offer short or long term secondments/ full or part time and can generally supply a staff member for cover at short notice for as little as a one days cover requirement.

Liaison

SCVS facilitates effective communication, networking and collaboration amongst local voluntary organisations and community groups and between local groups and the statutory and private sectors. This allows local groups to learn from one another, establish contacts and work more effectively.

To meet this core service we deliver:

Swale Community Empowerment Network (SCEN)

SCVS disseminates information to the Voluntary and Community Sector through the Swale Community Empowerment Network (SCEN) by means of a weekly update, regular bulletins and quarterly meetings. This is a facilitation of group networking and linking groups for self-assistance. (As a member of Swale CVS you automatically become part of and have access to the SCEN Network). Click link to SCEN

Focus Groups

Whether to test ideas for new projects, to uncover attitudes to volunteering or understand the needs of the community, focus groups are a straightforward way for research.

Conferences

SCVS facilitates conferences to enable the sector to have a wider participation in “hot” topics. Eg Funding, Volunteering, Tendering. In the past year SCVS facilitated the delivery of the two successful “Starfish and Spiders” conferences. 

Consultation events

To provide interested parties with the opportunity to discuss the proposals contained in local consultation documents we regularly hold consultation exercises at SCVS. These have recently included Children Centres consultation, Swale Borough Councils Local First Policy and Community Governance Review.