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CHURCHES HOMELESSNESS EVENT
Saturday 31st Jan @ The Salvation Army
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To book a place and a lunch email pcan@maister-smith.fsnet.co.uk
Wednesday, 14 January 2009
Tuesday, 6 January 2009
Winter Watch
On behalf of
I am writing to ask for volunteers to take part in a Winter Watch project.
Winter Watch is the name given to the emergency provision a Council provides for rough sleepers in the event of a sustained period of extreme cold weather.
In some areas, Councils meet their obligations by referring potential service users to the provision of neighbouring boroughs. In Preston plans are being put in place to accommodate, on a short term basis, people who have no alternative other than to sleep rough.
The Foxton Centre has been asked by the City Council to take a lead and be one of the main providers of such emergency provision.
Therefore, I am going to be putting together teams of people who are willing to volunteer to staff the Centre overnight. I will need, I think, teams of at least six to eight people willing to be available at short notice from late evening until after breakfast the following morning.
Each team will cover one night and hand over to another team on a rota basis.
Some volunteers may be required to do street based outreach if that is deemed to be the best way to contact those people most in need of the service.
Others will need to be in the Centre, overnight, awake and able to respond to issues that may arise.
For those willing to cook breakfast, a Food Hygiene Certificate will be an advantage!!
Experience of working successfully with vulnerable people and of assessing and minimising risk and with current CRB clearance will be essential.
Ideally, Team Leaders will have experience of working in a residential setting.
I also need a reserve of 15-20 mattresses and sleeping bags and somewhere to store them and access to a minibus/van to transport them to the Centre, again at short notice.
So this is an initial email to begin to gather names and contact details (Mobile and email), an indication of availability, and relevant experience, of willing volunteers.
What to do now
Please pass this email on to your networks of volunteers and appropriately experienced staff.
Please ask people to email me, Tim Keightley at foxtoncentre1@tiscali.co.uk and give the email the subject 'Winter Watch' with the details I have asked for above.
Please bear in mind, that Winter Watch will only kick in if Preston is experiencing severe weather that is likely to last for more than three days and nights.
The long-term weather forecast predicts that we may get to this stage in coming months.
We need to keep expectations low among the rough sleeping and other homeless people who may be interested in this provision because the provision may not become available. Therefore, please try to keep this information between yourselves for the time being.
My next step will be to try to get a meeting together in early January, probably for all interested in volunteering, but especially for team leaders.
(Why is it always me?)
Tim Keightley
Director
The Foxton Centre
I am writing to ask for volunteers to take part in a Winter Watch project.
Winter Watch is the name given to the emergency provision a Council provides for rough sleepers in the event of a sustained period of extreme cold weather.
In some areas, Councils meet their obligations by referring potential service users to the provision of neighbouring boroughs. In Preston plans are being put in place to accommodate, on a short term basis, people who have no alternative other than to sleep rough.
The Foxton Centre has been asked by the City Council to take a lead and be one of the main providers of such emergency provision.
Therefore, I am going to be putting together teams of people who are willing to volunteer to staff the Centre overnight. I will need, I think, teams of at least six to eight people willing to be available at short notice from late evening until after breakfast the following morning.
Each team will cover one night and hand over to another team on a rota basis.
Some volunteers may be required to do street based outreach if that is deemed to be the best way to contact those people most in need of the service.
Others will need to be in the Centre, overnight, awake and able to respond to issues that may arise.
For those willing to cook breakfast, a Food Hygiene Certificate will be an advantage!!
Experience of working successfully with vulnerable people and of assessing and minimising risk and with current CRB clearance will be essential.
Ideally, Team Leaders will have experience of working in a residential setting.
I also need a reserve of 15-20 mattresses and sleeping bags and somewhere to store them and access to a minibus/van to transport them to the Centre, again at short notice.
So this is an initial email to begin to gather names and contact details (Mobile and email), an indication of availability, and relevant experience, of willing volunteers.
What to do now
Please pass this email on to your networks of volunteers and appropriately experienced staff.
Please ask people to email me, Tim Keightley at foxtoncentre1@tiscali.co.uk and give the email the subject 'Winter Watch' with the details I have asked for above.
Please bear in mind, that Winter Watch will only kick in if Preston is experiencing severe weather that is likely to last for more than three days and nights.
The long-term weather forecast predicts that we may get to this stage in coming months.
We need to keep expectations low among the rough sleeping and other homeless people who may be interested in this provision because the provision may not become available. Therefore, please try to keep this information between yourselves for the time being.
My next step will be to try to get a meeting together in early January, probably for all interested in volunteering, but especially for team leaders.
(Why is it always me?)
Tim Keightley
Director
The Foxton Centre
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