Community Resilience Briefing – 2 June 2023

Welcome to The Highland Council’s fortnightly briefing for groups with an interest in local community resilience.

Funding

SCVO is a key source of funding information for the third sector. Funds that may be of interest include:

The Happiness Fund Supports projects which improve mental health and wellbeing, inclusion, learning and skills development in local communities. The fund is intended to support the setting up of new groups and activities, but applicants will need to indicate how the group can become self-sustainable. Next deadline 9 June 2023.
UK Government – Community Ownership Fund Voluntary and community groups can bid for matching funding to help them buy or take over local community assets and amenities. Next deadline 12 June 2023.
Help the Homeless Supports charities operating in the field of homelessness hostels, drop-in centres, and the like with grants for items of capital expenditure directly related to the provision of housing for homeless people. Applicants must relate projects that assist individuals in their return to mainstream society. Next deadline 15 June 2023.

The Boost small grants programme for organisations supporting children and families in their local communities is open to new applications.

The fund has been created to help groups who are finding that increases in basic running costs (utilities, salaries, transport) are making their work much more challenging. Boost will provide grants of between £500 and £3,000 to grassroots organisations and charities with a yearly income of up to £50,000 whose work benefits children and families in some way.

This fund aims to ensure accessible, supportive community-led activities remain available to children and families despite the challenges the cost-of-living poses for charities and community groups.

Boost is delivered by Corra Foundation in partnership with STV Children’s Appeal. There is £300,000 available to distribute, and decisions will be made on applications in the order they are submitted. When all the available funding is distributed, the programme will close for this year.

Find out more, including how to apply, on the Corra Foundation website.

Welfare, poverty reduction and resilience

Water Scarcity Report – The risk of water scarcity continues to increase across Scotland, and with little rain in the immediate forecast we expect the situation to escalate quickly and extend across a much wider area in the coming weeks.

The lack of rain and increasingly dry ground conditions means 12 areas in the Northwest and Southern Central Region are now experiencing the risk of water scarcity and have been raised to Alert level, with the majority of the rest of the country now at Early Warning. The exception is North Aberdeenshire which remains at Normal Conditions for the time being.

The Loch Maree area in the Highlands has recorded prolonged extremely low river flows moving it from Alert level to Moderate Scarcity in just one week.

Abstractors are being urged to think about the potential risk of water scarcity, monitor their water use, and plan ahead. By using water efficiently, businesses can increase their resilience to the impacts of prolonged dry conditions.
Webinars for Community Councils
Tuesday 13^th June at 6pm – Playlist for Life – Find out more and sign up here: https://forms.office.com/e/guirpYERdJ

Playlist for Life is a music and dementia charity. The charity was founded in 2013 by writer and broadcaster Sally Magnusson with a simple vision: for everyone with dementia to have a unique, personalised playlist and for everyone who loves or cares for them to know how to use it.

Hundreds of community organisations around the UK are supporting people to use the power of personal music to help those living with dementia by setting up a Playlist for Life Help Point. A Help Point is somewhere that people affected by dementia can access free information, resources and, in some cases support, to create and use a personalised playlist. Any organisation that can provide free advice, support or activity to people affected by dementia are invited to apply, from grassroots community groups to libraries, dementia cafes, sports clubs, community Police stations and GP Surgeries.

Tuesday 20^th June at 3pm – Rural Child Poverty – Find out more and sign up here : https://forms.office.com/e/PXhjJL1APL

This webinar will explore what all this means for Scotland’s children and what community councils can do to ensure they are reflecting the changing needs of the areas and the people they represent. The session will cover:

What we mean by child poverty and how national and local government are acting to address it
The additional barriers to inclusion and empowerment that exist in remote, rural and island areas
How community councils can make themselves as open, accessible, and representative as possible to those experiencing poverty

The webinar will include input from people with direct experience of poverty. It will also draw on learning from the Poverty Alliance, Aberdeenshire Council, and the Improvement Service.

Friday 30^th June at 6pm – Carbon Literacy Project – Find out more and sign up here : https://forms.office.com/e/aGsXnDsRBj

In March, The Carbon Literacy Project released the Parish, Town, and Community Councils Toolkit course. This Toolkit course is a suite of locally adaptable resources that enable any parish, town, or community council in the UK to deliver internal Carbon Literacy training.

The Carbon Literacy Project will provide guidance on how to use the Toolkit course for the delivery of Carbon Literacy training in your community council. This will include an introduction to the Toolkit course, its contents and how to use it, followed by a Q&A to discuss how you might approach Carbon Literacy training at your community council. Following the webinar, you can request access to the Toolkit course and begin to plan for delivery of Carbon Literacy training in your council.

Police Scotland Cyber Crime Reporting – Our response to cyber-attacks, phishing emails, scam emails, scam phone calls texts, etc is critical in terms of how we protect ourselves and as to how we support one another, be that as individuals or as businesses and organisations online. In fact, the Scottish Government’s Strategic Framework for a Cyber Resilient Scotland has a strong focus on our collective capacity, the means of working together, to effectively respond to and recover from cyber-attacks. Raising awareness of cyber-attacks is of course an essential element so we are all informed, to that end, can I ask you share this document with your own contacts.

If you have received an email which you’re not quite sure about, forward it to report@phishing.gov.uk and you can find out more here about the service – Report a scam email – NCSC.GOV.UK and how it is being hugely supported by members of the public and businesses and organisations across the UK.

If you or your organisation wish to make contact with our team, please email at PPCWCyberHarmPrevention@scotland.police.uk

Cost of living support – Highland Council webpages on support and information to help with the cost of living.
Help during the cost-of-living crisis – Scottish Government advice and information.
Energy Advice – Inverness Badenoch and Strathspey Citizens Advice Bureau offer free, impartial energy advice to householders. We provide advice to help reduce household energy use, save money, and understand energy bills and support householders to manage energy debt. This can be done in person, over the phone or by video call. We can be contacted on 01463 219742 or email energy@invernesscab.org

Mental Health and Wellbeing

NHS Highland Mental Wellbeing– a collection of resources and signposts to help people of all ages to look after their own mental wellbeing. Register for the event by following the link.
Cost of living crisis and your mental health
Many people are feeling the strain as the cost of living continues to increase. This resource provides information on how you can maintain your mental wellbeing at this time, alongside information on how to manage your money as bills rise.

Emergency Planning