Food Aid Providers Capacity Building Project

Islington’s Cost of Living Summit highlighted the need for a capacity building pilot project to join up and build the resilience of those providing crisis food aid and community food hubs so that they can better able support individuals in crisis by wrapping around them the support that they need.  In response, a partnership was formed between Help on Your Doorstep, Manor Gardens Welfare Trust, Octopus Community Network, and Voluntary Action Islington.

By bringing together the strengths of each partner organisation and those of the networks that they coordinate the capacity building programme aims to directly meet the immediate and underlying needs of those experiencing financial crisis whilst also building grassroots capacity.

Recognising that those visiting Foodbanks and Community Food Hubs are likely to be those most negatively affected by the cost-of-living crisis, a key pillar of the project is to join up a network of food aid providers, then through a programme of targeted capacity building, knit this essential help into the fabric of Islington’s rich and diverse welfare, employability and health and wellbeing support, so that people can get the right support at the right time, and move from crisis to wellbeing.

 

  • Community of Practice

    Join the Food Aid Providers Community of Practice (CoP), an opportunity to come together to discuss your provision, where there are successes and challenges, and learn from each other while thinking collectively about what a Food&More model would look like in Islington.

    What is a CoP? In all CoPs all members are seen as learners and teachers. A CoP provides an ideal environment for adults keen to learn and develop both personally and professionally, from one-another. CoP’s provide one of the best learning environments for adults who want to bring their life experiences to learning, who want to make connections between what they already know and the new things they are learning, want control over their learning experience, and what to apply their learning to their personal lives and/or work environment. 

    Who is the CoP for? Anyone involved in managing, coordinating, running or volunteering in a facility offering emergency/crisis food aid. 

    Sign up here!

  • Community Organising Workshops

    What is Community Organising? Community Organising is a process of bringing communities together to create positive change, through listening, reaching out and taking action. Through Community Organising, communities work together to recognise common goals, identify solutions, and build collective power.  

    These workshops provide the opportunity to explore and develop skills in listening, identifying power and taking action within food aid settings, encouraging participants to bring and share their experiences, and apply learning to their day to day work. 

    Together we will develop ideas for new pilot projects, based on the listening and reaching out you do with your communities. The six sessions will build a project idea and plan, with the opportunity for small pots of funding to run these pilot projects for those completing the workshops.

    Who are Community Organising workshops for? Anyone involved in managing, coordinating, running or volunteering in a facility offering emergency/crisis food aid.

    Sign up here!

  • Training Opportunities

    A the launch event in June we explored together some of the challenges and barriers you face, and what you need going forward to help address some of these challenges.

    This included a need to access training opportunities, and for an easy place to view the training opportunities that are already on offer.

    If you scroll down below the 'Project Timeline' section of this page, you'll see a selection of resources, including links to upcoming training. These will be updated regularly with a number of upcoming opportunities.

    These opportunities will also be shared via our monthly newsletter. You can sign up to the mailing list here!

    Alongside sharing information about existing training, with Islington's Public Health Team we've organised a specific in-person Make Every Contact Count session. The training will include understanding the range of factors that influence residents’ health and wellbeing and how to engage residents in short conversations about these issues, using the 'ask, assist, act' model.

    You can sign up to join this training here.

  • Local Wellbeing Networks

    Going forward, we are working hard on reaching and working more closely with Food Aid Providers through the Local Wellbeing Networks.

    Organisations have told us they would like more access to training and workforce development, and we will include relevant updates across all LWN meetings over the next 12 months.

    Upcoming meetings:

    South Local Wellbeing Network, 9th September, 12.30 - 3.30pm, Better Space, EC1R 3DA

    Central Local Wellbeing Network, 17th September, 12.30 - 3.30pm, Central Access Islington Hub, N1 1XR

    North Local Wellbeing Network, 24th September, 12.30 - 3.30pm, North Access Islington Hub, N7 6LA

  • Programme Launch

    The Food Aid Providers Capacity Building programme got off to a flying start with a ‘Community Conversation’ event to explore the current context of being a crisis food aid provider in Islington, and to delve deeper into what individual and collective learning and development needs exist.

    Why are we focusing upon capacity building?

    We all agreed that Islington should be at the forefront of providing a highly-responsive, quality-driven response to food aid provision, especially as many people visiting these are at their most vulnerable. We also agreed that residents should be able to readily access the help that they need, when they need it. Therefore, those providing crisis food support should be able to provide access to the wrap-around support needed.

  • Baseline Survey

    Understanding your work and your capacity building needs

    As part of the launch of the Food Aid Providers Capacity Building programme we are inviting all Food Aid providers in Islington to complete and submit a Baseline Survey.

    You can complete the survey here.

    What will we use the information for?

    The Capacity Building programme must respond to your learning and development needs, so the findings from the baseline will help us refine what’s on offer, but also help us better understand what you would like to gain from the programme.

  • Knitting and connecting the food aid provision in Islington

    We all agree that things work better if we have built meaningful relationships with others, we can connect and work with other organisations and points of support, and join up our work. Therefore, we agreed to encourage all crisis food aid providers to join the Network Connections Map and update their profile regularly so that residents and signposters can connect into existing services and activities.

    You can view and join the map here.

  • Stay up to date

    Throughout this project, we'll be sending a monthly newsletter with news, updates, upcoming opportunities and resources.

    You can sign up to join the mailing list here, and read previous issues below.

    News update 1 - July

    News update 2 - August

    News update 3 - September

    News update 4 - October

Project Timeline

Resources