Volunteering and training opportunities

Supported by European Social Funding, the Alliance South Division is currently working with Ealing Local Authority to reduce levels of poverty in the Borough. Considerable experience working in areas of deprivation enables the team to help unemployed people to learn new skills by taking up volunteering and training opportunities. Continuous support also ensures that participants build confidence and experience a smooth transition when entering employment. Thanks to close ties with local community groups, the team offers a tailored service which treats each person as a unique individual.

Supporting baby and toddler groups

The Alliance supports thousands of baby and toddler groups across the country, giving us a unique understanding of the real issues faced by volunteers. Funded by the London Borough of Sutton, the Alliance team in South Division supports 48 baby and toddler groups in the local area. The team has direct experience setting up and running settings themselves, which has proved invaluable to helping others. The Alliance has established links with local Children’s Centres which gives new groups extra value too. They benefit from receiving consistent, professional advice and easy access to specialist resources covering areas such as marketing, policies and procedures and general best practice.

Flexible inclusion services

Since 2001, the Alliance South Division has provided inclusion support to settings across the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. The service ensures that local children and their families are aware of and gain from early years education opportunities available in the area. The team also supports early years practitioners, giving them more confidence to better meet the needs of children in their care. Parents feel more reassured too as they can see that their child is receiving the most appropriate support from the very start. Regularly sharing best practice enables the team to review and further improve the service. This ensures limited resources are used more effectively and efficiently. The value of this flexible and responsive service has been formally recognised by the local authority, which provides continuous funding for the project.

Establishing new Children’s Centres

The Alliance South Division was approached by the London Borough of Barnet to set up a new Children’s Centre in an area showing 70% deprivation. With proven experience of managing centres in disadvantaged communities, our local Alliance team confidently established the centre’s core offer, which includes child and family support services, parental outreach, support for childminders and information and advice on local childcare. Early consultation with community members and strong parent representation on their advisory board helped the team to deliver a tailored service. Strong relationships with local partners such as Health PCT, PVI providers, Job Centre Plus, BME agencies and pre-school teaching teams also contributed towards the development of an inclusive and comprehensive service. An inspection by Together for Children confirmed that Stonegrove Childrens Centre ‘excelled’ in the service it provided. Recognising this success, the local authority has invited the Alliance to open a second centre in the Borough.

Engaging hard-to-reach families

The Alliance North Division and Blackburn and Darwin Children’s Services are working together to help hard-to-reach families integrate into the local community. The partnership focuses on improving quality of life for families by helping parents to develop new skills and find work. The Alliance team supports two Children’s Centres in the area by delivering flexible family programmes. The introduction of a new women’s group has helped members to gain confidence and find voluntary and paid employment locally. Thanks to projects like this, both centres have seen an increase in visitors wishing to explore new training, volunteering and job opportunities.

Setting up toy libraries and resource centres

In partnership with Mencap, The Lindsey Blind Centre, Voluntary Action North Lincolnshire and several other local charities, the Alliance North Division is working to establish a toy library and resource centre run solely by volunteers. With considerable experience of multi-partner working, the Alliance has helped bring together the knowledge, skills and resources held by each of these organisations. The team has also used its strong community links to consult families and determine local need. North Lincolnshire Council has acknowledged the great value of this project by offering to help promote the service and raise its profile locally. The group is currently exploring how to extend this successful service model to neighbouring areas.

Supporting Stay and Play groups

The Alliance North Yorkshire Sub-committee works with North Yorkshire County Council to support Stay & Play provision across the region. Support focuses on the key areas of Management, Risk Assessment, Health & Safety and Messy Play. The team operates flexibly across the county, adapting and tailoring services to meet the needs of groups which are often located in isolated and hard to reach communities. The introduction of ‘Toddler Times’ and ‘Toddler Information Evenings’, in particular, provide many rural groups with the opportunity to network, share best practice and become more inclusive. Whether they need help setting up a new service or require extra ideas for an established group, these communities rely on local Alliance development workers for specialist support and guidance.

Contact us

For more information about what we can do in your local community, contact the divisional office responsible for your area. To view a map showing the breakdown of our divisional areas, click here