As this is the last employability newsletter of 2020, Janice and I just wanted to pay tribute to our members for the breathtaking speed, extraordinary resilience and unswerving commitment of your response to COVID – across communities, and for our most vulnerable people.
You have proven just how invaluable and essential you are again and again, and we hope your ambition and ability to play a leading role in our recovery is harnessed – creating a fairer, more equal and just country.
Thank you for being there
Last week, we highlighted some of our main activities during 2020. The year has been unlike any we have experienced – both in personal and working capacities – and, like everyone, we hope 2021 will be a whole lot better. The activities we identified last week very much had a focus on supporting, connecting and informing frontline social enterprises – and including a couple of new initiatives which we have been involved in developing. From an internal point of view, however, the main event was the merging of Social Firms Scotland and Senscot. Social Enterprise Network Scotland (SENScot) came into being on 1st July 2002 – as a result of a review of national social enterprise intermediaries (part of Scottish Govt’s SE Action Plan).
As we approach the end of a challenging year – on many levels – it seems appropriate to reflect on our activity over the last twelve months. 2020 has been, and always will be, associated with the Covid pandemic and its impact across the globe. The impact on social enterprises in Scotland and the communities they serve has been well-documented through this Newsletter since the first days of lockdown in late March. SENScot’s own specific interventions included Reset Week in May – followed up in November with Restart and Rebuild Week. Together, the two weeks attracted around 1500 attendees, participating in over 40 online sessions. Over and above these two week-long events, other activities over the year worth reflecting on have included: 48 monthly Thematic Newsletters; over 40 thematic SEN meetings; 5 Community Learning Exchanges hosted; ongoing support to 20 local SENs; supporting the development of a series of local Social Enterprise Strategies – as well as participating in the ‘drafting group’ for the new, national SE Action Plan. In addition, specific initiatives developed include Pockets and Prospects 2020 and a new Community Tourism Pilot. These Slides give a snapshot on activity – mainly with regards to thematic SENs. Next week, we’ll have some reflections on our most significant development – from an internal perspective – the merging of Senscot and Social Firms Scotland into Social Enterprise Network Scotland (SENScot) in July.
Welcome to the December newsletter. What a year it’s been! No one could have predicted last December what was to come and I hope during the struggles of the past few months that you have all found some enjoyable moments. This month’s newsletter is a bit of a bumper edition- so much going on over the next few weeks.
I hope you all manage to have a lovely Christmas break, find some time to relax and are able to connect with loved ones. See you all in 2021!
The response to the new 2020 Pockets and Prospects Programme – Collaborating in Communities to Improve Mental Health – has been really encouraging. This year’s Programme focuses on addressing the emerging mental health and wellbeing needs (resulting from the Covid-19 crisis) within local communities. Such has been the level of interest, that we have now been receiving approaches from partners with a view to developing the Pockets and Prospects model with a specific focus on mental health in the workplace. We expect to have more on this shortly. To date, over 15 community anchor organisations have signed up – with nearly 50 SEN members offering to supply over 160 different services and/or activities. This introduction from this week’s Scottish Community Alliance Briefings captures the ethos that underpins the Pockets and Prospects model and suggests it could be a forerunner of how our sector works together in the future. The current programme runs through until May 2021. For more info’ on Pockets and Prospects 2020, please see Web Platform or contact mary@senscot.net
It’s December! This is the last sport newsletter of 2020 and with news hot off the press of vaccines being approved, hopefully 2021 will bring some semblance of life as we knew it before. It’s certainly been a difficult year and I’ve been continually impressed at the care and support offered by sport social enterprises to their communities.
The festive season isn’t an easy time for many, and this year will be no different. There’s a lot of talk in the media about how awful it’s going to be for people who normally have large family gatherings, but now can’t. However, it’s important to remember that every year, many people aren’t surrounded by family and friends and this can be a time when already fragile people can feel more vulnerable.
Pockets and Prospects 2020 gets underway over the next couple of weeks – and will run through until May 2021. This year’s programme – Collaborating in Communities to Improve Mental Health – is funded by Scottish Govt via the Scottish Community Alliance (SCA). It is being hosted by SENScot and run in partnership with fellow SCA members, Scottish Communities for Heath & Wellbeing and CHEX. Its focus will be on addressing the emerging mental health and wellbeing needs (resulting from the Covid-19 crisis) within local communities. This new Pockets and Prospects Platform is now ‘live’ – and will allow participants to ‘pick and mix’ the services they wish to access. Over 15 community anchor organisations have signed up – with nearly 50 SEN members offering to supply over 160 different services and/or activities. If you’d like more info’ on Pockets and Prospects 2020, please contact mary@senscot.net.
We are delighted with the response across the SENs to the latest Pockets & Prospect’s Project that we’re developing in collaboration with Scottish Communities for Health & Wellbeing (SCHW) and CHEX. There are now approaching 50 social enterprise suppliers offering a wide range of activities and services that contribute to improving mental health, with these being available to participating community organisations. Check out tomorrow’s Network News to view the full listing!
This week’s ‘Restart and Rebuild Week’ has attracted over 700 attendees – participating in over 20 separate sessions – and ends tomorrow afternoon (Friday 20th at 2pm) with the SE Restart and Rebuild Finale. Our programme has sought to inform, inspire and connect frontline social enterprises – and to support one another – as we all move towards recovery from the impact of the Covid crisis. Tomorrow’s Finale focuses on Climate Change and Social Enterprise – and includes contributions from, amongst others, Dr Martin Valenti (Head of Climate Change, Scottish Enterprise); Ian Mitchell, CEIS; Kevin Bonarius, Gairoch Sport Centre; Alison Elliott (Murton Trust); and Elaine Brown (Edinburgh Remakery). Most importantly, it will see the launch of a Social Enterprise Net Zero Strategy (Draft) – encouraging all social enterprises in Scotland to unite and lead the way to NetZero transitions by 2045. Further consultation with the sector will take place over the coming weeks. Spaces available for the Finale – as well as tomorrow’s other sessions. See Dates for your Diary – below. Particularly popular sessions, in terms of registrations, have included: the John Pearce Memorial Lecture; the Sport SEN session with Mel Young; the Employment SEN session – on employment for young people; and the Funding and Investment session.
When this newsletter arrives in your Inbox, we’ll be around halfway through #RestartRebuild – a week long series of events aiming to Inform, Inspire and Connect social enterprise across Scotland.
We had a great turnout and speakers for both our Young People & Employability/Employment session on Monday and the Funding & Investment session yesterday. You can still book onto our remaining sessions here and just to highlight one particular session