On the 30th September 2014 The Congleton Partnership invited a range of service providers and organisations with special interest in older and harder to reach residents with a view to pulling together a forum to look at the gaps in provision and tackle ways of improving the needs of this group within the community.
Organisations represented at this first meeting were:-
Cheshire Action , Citizens Advice Bureau, Cheshire East Community Services, Shop Mobility, Friends in Retirement, New Life Church, CVS Cheshire East, U3A, Bromley Farm Trust , Carers Trust 4 All and Congleton Partnership. They have been joined more recently by AgeUK Cheshire East, Congleton Disabled Club, Plus Dane, LOL, Disability Together & Team Parish
The group held a workshop to look at 3 issues.
- Highlight what they believed were gaps in provision.
- Look at ways of working together to maximise benefits for the target audience.
- Looking at the best way to communicate the opportunities / events etc to the residents.
One very important conclusion was that we should look to work to improve communications by some form of networking and pulling together a comprehensive booklet /directory for residents to use as a reference document as and when needs arise.
A subsequent questionnaire indicated that communication of opportunities, services and events was most important to getting residents involved. The method of communication was clearly by local media, newsletter of word of mouth with social media and IT coming a distant second choice.
With this in mind the group set about developing a communication project / system that people would recognize and hopefully benefit from in terms of being better informed and more encouraged to get out and join in /meet other people.
The result, Bob’s Blog ‘Bearing Up’ will appear in The Chronicle to bring news and information in an entertaining and humorous way, we hope you enjoy it and benefit from its content.
Useful Links:
IACE – Information and Advice Cheshire East