VIN signs to the International Ethical Recruitment Charter

/by

The International Ethical Recruitment Charter for West Northamptonshire has been launched.

This is a significant achievement which VIN took part in and plays a pivotal role in creating a document that upholds the highest principles of ethical and respectful recruitment for international care workers.

The Charter is now live and available for sign-up on the West Northamptonshire Council website, where care providers can formally commit to its principles.

Explore and share the Charter: https://www.westnorthants.gov.uk/irec

VIN AGM

/by

Join VIN at our Annual General Meeting. Learn about some of our organisations and the support that VIN has provided and in addition understand how Neighbourhood Health might impact on the VCFSE and how West Northamptonshire Council will be changing its approach to Community Investment. Take part in Lunch and the opportunity to network with other likeminded organisations.

Please book your ticket here 

Northamptonshire Community Pot – The Drug and Alcohol Treatment and Recovery Improvement Grant (DATRIG)

/by

This grant is issued as part of the Government’s overarching strategy to reduce harm from substance misuse and to support long-term recovery, as outlined in the 10-year plan: From Harm to Hope: A 10-Year Drugs Plan to Cut Crime and Save Lives.

As part of this strategy, the Community Pot focus is on enhancing recovery capital, increasing access to services for marginalised and underserved populations, and promoting culturally responsive, inclusive, and innovative approaches to support for Northamptonshire residents.

The Community Pot aims to reduce barriers to treatment, build resilience at the local level, and foster recovery-oriented environments that complement the wider drug and alcohol treatment system.

This approach supports the national ambition of delivering a whole-system, person-centred response to substance misuse.

Community Pot outcomes:

 

  1. Enhanced Access- Increase access to recovery support within local communities, particularly for hard-to-reach groups.
  2. Community Empowerment -Strengthen community resilience and ownership of substance misuse issues through local co-production with people with lived experience.
  3. Early & Alternative Engagement – Improve engagement of individuals not in structured treatment via trusted community-based pathways + community led pathways.
  4. Diverse Support needs – Broaden the range of inclusive variety of support models available to meet diverse needs across the local population.
  5. Sustainable Capacity- Increase sustainability and visibility of organisations working within the recovery and harm reduction space.

 

The Initiatives focus is to dismantle barriers to access for marginalised and underserved communities, considering diversity in ethnicity, faith, disability, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic background, and other factors.

Approaches that integrate cultural competence, inclusivity, and innovation into service delivery. Community-based pathways that complement structured treatment and strengthen whole-system responses.

 

Funding Available:

  • Total funding available: £30,000.
  • Maximum award per organisation: £4,000.
  • One application per organisation per funding round.
  • Spend deadline: All awarded funds must be fully utilised by 31 March 2026 and applications must be submitted by 12 Noon on the 17th of November 2025.

 

The application form can be found here: https://forms.office.com/e/ha5yDPUbhX

Northamptonshire Suicide Prevention Strategy

/by

The all-age, county-wide Northamptonshire Suicide Prevention Strategy and Action Plan 2022-2025 is due to come to an end this December 2025. There will be the development of new West Northamptonshire Council’s (WNC) and North Northamptonshire Council’s (NNC) Suicide Prevention and Self-Harm Strategies and Action Plans, with a proposed launch in April 2026.

 

These Strategies and Action Plans will underpin the county-wide Northamptonshire Suicide Prevention Steering Group.

 

To support the development of these new documents, a county-wide approach is being taken, led jointly by WNC and NNC Public Health Teams.

 

During November and December 2025, there will be 4 online workshops (2 hours each), with each workshop focussing on 2 of the national suicide prevention priorities.

 

The online workshops will allow time to reflect on what has been achieved locally for these priority areas to date and discussion time to explore potential objectives and actions to address future areas of focus. These discussions will need to be aligned with current resource and system to ensure the development of achievable action plans.

 

The below table highlights the priorities each workshop will focus on:

 

Workshop  Priorities 
1  Priority 1: Improving data and evidence to ensure that effective, evidence-informed, and timely interventions continue to be developed and adapted.
Priority 3: Addressing common risk factors linked to suicide at a population level to provide early intervention and tailored support.
2  Priority 2: Tailored, targeted support to priority groups, including those at higher risk, to ensure there is bespoke action and that interventions are effective and accessible for everyone.
Priority 5: Providing effective crisis support access sectors for those who reach crisis point.
3  Priority 4: Promoting online safety and responsible media content to reduce harms, improve support and signposting, and provide helpful messages about suicide and self-harm.
Priority 6: Reducing access to means and methods of suicide where this is appropriate and necessary as an intervention to prevent suicides.
4  Priority 7: Providing effective bereavement support to those affected by suicide.
Priority 8: Making suicide everybody’s business so that we can maximise our collective impact and support to prevent suicides.

 

If you are interested in attending any of the online 4 workshops, please respond to this email by COP Wednesday 15th October 2025 with your name, email address, and the workshops of interest.

 

You will then be sent the relevant workshop meeting invitations.

 

Please note that a pre-reading document will be shared ahead of the workshops with essential and recommended reading. This is to ensure attendees have a good understanding of the work area and to help maximise discussion time within the workshops.

 

Funding Symposium 2025

/by

SAWN held its first Funding Symposium on the 25th of September 2025 at Waterside Connect, the home of SCCYC.

Over 40 delegates attended, and heard presentations on Gift Fundraising, Financial Resilience, and Partnership working.

There was also an update on the merger between SNVB and Daventry Volunteers, followed by a round table world café.

You can view the slides here and here

Russell Rolph, the CEO of VIN states:

It’s always good to get the VCFSE in a room, not least for the networking but also to check how they are feeling. It’s a tough and challenging environment out there in a County of much transformation. We hope we can grow these SAWN yearly events for the future and are happy to take ideas from people about what they should include.

Upcoming dates for your diary:

VCFSE Engagement Group of West Northamptonshire Tickets, Wed, Oct 22, 2025 at 11:00 AM | Eventbrite

CEO Network of West Northamptonshire Tickets, Wed, Oct 29, 2025 at 11:30 AM | Eventbrite

 

 

 

 

An Update on Connect to Work

/by

Following a Market Supplier Engagement Event last week regarding the Connect to Work programme, please find attached the slides from the session which can be accessed here.

Every VCFSE organisation should examine the contents of the presentation and decide whether or not it fits your ability to deliver.

Notable concerns are:

Volunteering is not seen as an output. For many VCFSE organisations who work with vulnerable cohorts Volunteering is often seen as an important first contribution in building a CV.

Timelines: These are tight and therefore it’s aimed at those who are immediately ready for work without barriers or obstacles.

Funding: The funding amounts to 2100.00 per individual and that support is a balance of pre and post-employment.

The Procurement Process is shown as content within the Presentation.

VIN held a Focus Group last week of a select number of VCFSE organisations form West Northamptonshire tag work around the subject area of Worklessness or Economic Inactivity. For many, the programme is seen as challenging given the type of individuals they work with, some of whom are the most displaced from the employment market.

Further updates will be provided on the VIN website so visit regularly to ensure you do not miss out on vital information regarding this fund.

BBC Radio Northamptonshire ‘Make a Difference’ award- Winners!

/by

We are so happy that Northampton Volunteer Car Scheme has been recognised in the BBC Radio Northamptonshire ‘Make a Difference’ awards, alongside individual recognition for our long-standing volunteer, Paul Hardwick.

Paul is an extremely dedicated individual and volunteers 5 days a week to help elderly and disabled people get to their medical appointments. He has done over 1000 journeys for the scheme in that time and is instrumental in training up new volunteers to be drivers. He is a vital part of the Northampton Volunteer Car Scheme.

All of us here at Voluntary Impact Northamptonshire are immensely proud of the Car Scheme and everything it does for the community.  We cannot thank our volunteer drivers enough for the time and commitment they give, going above and beyond in the efforts they put in to making sure people in Northampton can attend their vital medical appointments.

Thank you again to all of our volunteers and to our staff team, without whose dedication this service could not exist.

Northampton Volunteer Car Scheme takes elderly and/ or disabled people who live in postcodes NN1 to NN5 to medical appointments. All journeys are done by volunteers in their own cars or we do have a Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle (WAV) which volunteers are able to drive.

If you are interested in becoming a volunteer driver or joining the scheme as a member, please contact on carscheme@voluntaryimpact.org.uk or call 01604 628234.

 

 

 

 

Re-Imagining Planned Care

/by

Re-imagining Planned Care is a programme running across both West and North Northamptonshire. Both Northampton and Kettering General Hospitals are involved in the Programme, and more can be found here:

Re-imagining Planned Care together

The Programme aims to tackle the following challenges:

  1. Long waits with patient’s conditions deteriorating during delays.
  1. Care not always delivered in a local or convenient location for patients.
  1. Limited coordination of care, meaning multiple appointments that patients may struggle to make, often with more than one service involved.
  1. Patients not feeling like they understand or getting what they need from some of the appointments they attend.
  1. Inequalities in access, experience, and outcomes.

Organisations and individuals can help assist the onboarding process by completing or circulating 2 surveys, both of which should take between 5 and 7 minutes to complete.

The Patient survey can be found here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SWKGSG8

The Self-Referral Service Survey can be found here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FS2G788

Joint VCFSE Statement on the NHS Long Term Plan

/by

The VCSFE Engagement Group of West Northamptonshire, SAWN (the West Northamptonshire Infrastructure Partnership) and the Northamptonshire VCSE Assembly have come together to draft a joint statement on the NHS Long Term Plan.

The Statement can be found here

Russell Rolph, the VIN CEO states:

We want to work collaboratively with the ICB in the operation of the new NHS Long Term Plan. The VCFSE is coming together to show a united and collective approach to both the system challenges and opportunities we all face. The VCFSE is rooted in local communities and in Neighbourhoods, and in many cases can assist in the process of delivering great people care. I would like to thank my ICB colleagues for entering the dialogue in a positive and constructive manner. We all want to see excellent preventative care delivered across the county, and opening conduits and frameworks for discussion will help us to achieve this.

The next VCFSE Engagement Group in the West takes place on the 23rd of September 2025 between 10.00AM and 11.30AM with a debate on shared values led by David Smart of Action for Happiness.

Check out the What’s New Section of the VIN website for further details in due course, where the virtual link will be posted.

State Sector Survey

SAWN launches the State of the Sector Survey 2025 – What’s Happening in your World

/by

The SAWN Partnership of VIN, SNVB and Daventry Volunteers launches its State of the Sector Survey for 2025 entitled What’s Happening in your World. The survey is vitally important in understanding the challenges and opportunities that lie before of VCFSE in West Northamptonshire.

The survey can be found here, and should take no longer than 15 minutes to complete: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=0qeGfzRmuUCPn-TnMx11i_whreORKbZHtggdC4lm0iRURTRWMjJQWlhXODhCSFhCOVFDNUZCQ1cwTC4u

The survey is open until the 30th of November 2025.

Russell Rolph, the CEO of VIN states:

We have deliberately compiled a survey which will take no longer than 15 minutes to complete, as we know that our VCFSE is deluged with requests all year round. This is an important survey though as it tells the SAWN Partnership more about the state of our community organisations, and whether they are fit for the future or struggling amidst the current challenges. For SAWN to represent you well we need a substantial number of survey completions, so please take 15 minutes out of your day and send it on to others who you have a connection with. SAWN will collate the results in December and publish these to System Partners. We are not asking you to do this for fun. There are several complex challenges in Commissioning and Co-Production which th3 VCFSE provides a solution to, but we must be clear about how fit or indeed unfit we are moving forward.