​Community Family Care has launched a ground-breaking support service for schools. 

From September 2017, primary schools who subscribe to the Family and Child Support for Schools Service (FACSS) will be able to get help from a professional child support worker by calling a family support hotline.

The experts provided by Community Family Care will offer case-specific support, advice, information and guidance.

Sasha Brown, Family Care Manager for CFC, said many primary schools fall through the net when it comes to family support. 

“With social care thresholds rising, an increasing number of young people and their families are falling through the support net. 

“Schools find themselves taking on more responsibility for issues that fall outside of their education remit. They are experts at teaching, but they don’t always have the expertise or resources to provide family support. Nor do they have the budget to employ a family support worker.

“Often the role becomes an add-on to a teacher’s workload – and teachers have little or no back-up.”

FACCS is a unique subscription service that gives schools access to independent advice, information and guidance from experts at an affordable cost. It can also provide toolkits for intervention, training, supervision and access to a network of Family Support Workers and peer support groups. 

“It’s all about early intervention,” said Sasha. “If we are able to guide schools and families along the right lines at primary school, it can prevent all sorts of major issues developing further down the line.” 

Anyone interested should contact sashab@communityfamilycare.co.uk.
  
Community Family Care helps families, children and young people in need of support. It seeks to improve parents’ confidence, help with routines to get children to school, or more complex support dealing with challenging behaviours at home.

Community Family Care is over the moon that its Art Journal project is a winner in a national competition.

The charity, based in Staunton, has been awarded £10,000 to set up art projects in Gloucestershire for troubled children who have difficulty expressing their thoughts and feelings with words.

The money comes from the Aviva Community Fund which offers grants to community projects that make a difference.

Sasha Brown, Family Care Manager for CFC, is delighted that the Art Journal Project beat competition from hundreds of entries.

“It’s fantastic news and we’d like to thank everyone who voted for us,” she said.

She also thanked Blackdown Financial Services which nominated the scheme on behalf of CFC.

The aim is to run 12 Art Journal groups for children aged 8 to 18 in Gloucestershire.

“Young people face increasing social and educational pressures that they don’t always have coping strategies to deal with. Everyday stresses can become too difficult to manage and some young people turn to harmful or destructive behaviour as a result,” said Sasha.

“There is a clear need for early intervention support to help them manage. Art Journals are a therapeutic way of doing that. Specially trained staff guide and teach young people how to use art to boost emotional wellbeing.” 

Community Family Care helps families, children and young people in need of support. It seeks to improve parents’ confidence, help with routines to get children to school, or more complex support dealing with challenging behaviours at home.

Community Family Care and Community Foster Care have a new Business Development Manager.
 
Daniel Jones, 31, joins the two sister charities after 13 years working with young people.
 
Brought up in Tuffley, Dan left St Peter’s School in Gloucester to take a gap year teaching outdoor education – and stayed for six years.
 
“I had great fun with kids doing mountain biking, archery, rock climbing and survival skills for the Birmingham Diocese. At the same time, I did a degree in Youth and Community Work at the University of Derby,” said Dan, who now lives in Sandhurst.
 
For the last two years Dan was the Deputy CEO of Open House in Stroud which offers support and accommodation to young homeless people and those with complex needs. For five years before that, he was a youth work manager for Young Gloucestershire.
 
His links with fostering were strengthened in 2010 when he joined the Community Foster Care Panel.
 
“I like the culture of CFC and the way it works with young people – it’s totally child-centred and that’s what sets it apart from other agencies. There is a lot of potential and opportunity to grow,” he said.
 
Chief Executive of Community Family Care and Community Foster Care, Hugh Pelham, welcomed Dan.

“He has been a real asset on our Foster Care Panel and is just the person we need to help take our charities forward. His experience and enthusiasm are first class.”

Community Family Care is launching a new skills based workshop aimed at staff members who are working in a Family Support role within a school setting. The workshops will enable discussions around common issues faced in supporting families within a school setting as well as providing practical skills for working with children and families. 
 
Programme Outline:
2 x ½ day training workshops designed to give school Family Support Workers a comprehensive introduction to the role. After attending the workshops participants should have a practical toolkit and a framework for dealing with family support issues within a school setting.
 
Day 1 – Practical Skills
What is family support?
Recording information
Communication skills
Lone working
Supervision/support
 
Day 2 – Toolkit
Dealing with common parenting problems/issues
Assessment tips
Signposting to other services
Making referrals

The sessions will provide an opportunity for participants to ask role specific questions and partake in discussions regarding the role. A toolkit of tip sheets and local resources will also be provided for participants to take away and start using after the workshops. 
Workshops are spread across two afternoon sessions to reduce the impact on the school day. 

Dates: Monday 27th February and Monday 6th March 2017 1.00 – 4.30pm
Based at Community Family Care, Unit 15 The Hawthorns, Staunton, GL19 3NY
 
Cost: £160 per participant inclusive of refreshments and certificate of attendance.
 
Places are limited and will be allocated on a first come first serve basis. To book a place please complete the booking form below and return to info@communityfamilycare.co.uk

Please vote for Community Family Care. That’s the plea from our team at Staunton who need the public’s support to win a major competition.
 
The charity is pitching for a slice of the Aviva Community Fund which offers grants to community projects that make a difference.
 
Community Family Care has two ground-breaking projects which make a big impact to the wellbeing of parents and children – and need funding to go ahead.
 
Chill & Chat drop-in sessions proposed for Tredworth and Northway offer a lifeline to parents who are struggling with day-to-day family life and don’t know where to turn. They enable parents to get together in an informal atmosphere and seek advice from a trained Family Support Worker.
 
The Art Journal Project supports children who have difficulty coping to express their thoughts and feelings through art, boosting their emotional wellbeing and promoting positive mental health. The aim is to run 12 groups across Gloucester and Tewkesbury.
 
The Art Journal scheme has been nominated by Blackdown Financial Services on behalf of Community Family Care.
 
Family Care Manager with Community Family Care, Sasha Brown, said both projects can only go ahead with external funding.
 
“We need all our supporters to go online and vote for Community Family Care so we can get to the finals. So please support us.
 
“Voting isn’t difficult. Just follow the links and spare two minutes to help change the lives of children and families in your area.”
 
Chill & Chat link: https://community-fund.aviva.co.uk/voting/project/view/16-2085
Art Journal Project link: https://community-fund.aviva.co.uk/voting/project/view/16-1580
 
Voting closes on November 18.
 
The charity, based in Staunton, helps families, children and young people in need of support. It seeks to improve parents’ confidence, help with routines to get children to school, or more complex support dealing with challenging behaviours at home.

Community Family Care from Staunton has won invaluable funding from the People’s Postcode Lottery.
 
The charity, based in Staunton, helps families, children and young people in need of support.
 
The £4,000 grant from the People’s Postcode Trust will go towards IT equipment such as laptops and mobile phones for case workers. It will also cover training and recruitment costs for five new sessional Family Support Workers.
 
“Getting essential IT equipment and keeping it up-to-date is a big cost for an organisation like ours which has three staff and relies on public funding. So getting the support of the People’s Postcode Trust is invaluable,” said Sasha Brown, Family Care Manager with Community Family Care.
 
CFC seeks to improve parents’ confidence, help with routines to get children to school, or more complex support dealing with challenging behaviours at home.
 
People’s Postcode Lottery is a charity lottery. Players play with their postcodes to win cash prizes whilst raising money for good causes. A minimum of 30 per cent goes directly to charities.
 
Since 2009, People’s Postcode Trust has awarded more than £11 million to more than 1,600 charity projects across Great Britain. This funding is only made possible through the support of players of People’s Postcode Lottery.

‘Chill and Chat’ sessions for parents in Tewkesbury have won backing from the Big Lottery Fund.
 
The weekly sessions, organised by Community Family Care, will enable parents to get together and seek advice and guidance from a trained Family Support Worker.
 
Sasha Brown, Family Care Manager with Community Family Care, was delighted to win the £7,222 grant from the Big Lottery Fund’s Awards for All scheme.
 
“A lot of parents don’t know where to go for support,” she said.
 
“Many struggle on and it can become very isolating. They may be experiencing difficult child behaviour, family breakdown or other stresses linked to everyday life. They may want to offload or seek advice on problems which aren’t serious enough for social services to become involved, but if they don’t get support, the issues escalate.
 
“Our aim is to provide an informal environment where parents can offload and seek help - a safe space to chat to other parents who may be experiencing similar problems. Through early intervention we can help prevent families reaching crisis point further down the line.”
 
The charity, based in Staunton, helps families, children and young people in need of support. It seeks to improve parents’ confidence, help with routines to get children to school, or more complex support dealing with challenging behaviours at home.
 
The weekly drop-in sessions are set to begin on Friday September 9 from 9.15am to 11.15am during term-time at Priors Park Chapel, Tewkesbury, until July 2017.
 
The CFC grant is one of hundreds of organisations in England sharing around £30.5 million from the Reaching Communities and Awards for All programmes. Awards for All provides grants between £300 and £10,000 to voluntary and community organisations and Reaching Communities awards larger grants of £10,000 and above.

We’re very proud that Community Family Care has been accredited as a frontline service provider in an ambitious new scheme designed to reach some of the most vulnerable people in Gloucestershire.
 
Called GEM (Going the Extra Mile), its aim is to engage with Gloucestershire’s hardest to reach, most vulnerable unemployed and financially-excluded people, who face multiple barriers to work.

​The primary objective is to move these people closer towards education, training, volunteering or work, including self-employment.
 
It is funded by £3.2 million from the EU, managed via the National Lottery.
 
Community Family Care has been chosen as one of 22 delivery partners whose roles will include pre-engagement, referrals and output delivery. The fact that we have been selected is indicative of Community Family Care’s growing reputation and the quality of its work.