Notes of the Voluntary Sector Forum Meeting held on 1 st April 2014
Present
Garry Jones, Chief Executive, York CVS
Adam Myers, Brunswick
Matthew Hick, National Railway Museum/Volunteering Partnership
Pauline Buchanan, York Older People’s Assembly
AnneParkinson, Wilberforce Trust
Rita Sanderson, YREN
John Burgess, Chair, VCS Forum for Mental Health
Apologies
George Wood, YOPA
Sally Hutchinson, Age UK York
Alison Shepherd, Playspace
Roger Butterfield, Chair, VCS Forum for Learning Difficulties
1. Welcome
Garry Jones welcomed everyone to the meeting and everyone introduced themselves.
2. Forum and sector round-up a. York Race Equality Network
Now been in existence for 22 years, and as relevant today as it was when formed. Important that people are able to access services and ensure that people have information t know what is available. YREN’s service level agreement with City of York
Council was cut a few years ago, and it is felt that York is not good at delivering its statutory duties to people from ethnic minorities.
YREN brought in an external consultant to do a complete evaluation, recently completed. Demand on our services is greater now around poverty and deprivation and people withdrawing from community life rather than embracing it. YREN has now produced a 5 year business plan, about to publish and request feedback – not too much detail available yet. The Equalities Forum is still high up on their agenda. Asked to represent equalities issues at many,
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many meetings and use volunteers to supplement Rita’s ability to attend. YREN would like to increase this representation.
The review identified key partnerships to continue to work on: the
Without Walls Board, Fairness and Equalities Board, Voluntary
Sector Forum, City of York Council’s Equality Advisory Group.
With regard to North Yorkshire Police – continue to be represented on the York Central Equality Group which Rita chairs.
Want to have more input into the mental health agenda – struggled with capacity to attend VCS Mental Health Forum. No decision finally made – still waiting to hear about what’s happening with the
Health Inequalities Partnership Board.
Close relationship with York Mind. This 3 year project has now come to an end, would be good to ask them to come and speak at a future forum.
Equalities Forum – 2 pilots – 2012 and 2013. Tried to do it ‘in kind’ but it was difficult for people to provide a free venue. May need to work more closely in partnership with colleagues to deliver future events.
Rita thanked partners for submitting their views. b) VCS Forum for Mental Health
John Burgess, Chair, made a presentation. 1 in 4 people are affected by mental health issues at some point in their lives – the
Joint Strategic Needs Assessment estimates 25,000 people in
York are affected, but this needs more research. Work is being undertaken to clarify these statistics. It is the single largest cause of disability. According to the experts, it accounts for 23% of disease burden but only 13% of NHS expenditure, 11% in York
(about £8m), this is historical, the PCT underfunded and it is very difficult to change this now. York MPs are trying to intervene.
York has significantly high levels of anxiety/depression. John read a case study of an actual person from a newspaper of someone
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who had high levels depression and anxiety, leading to suicidal thoughts. Can also lead to OCD and self-harming. John explained the purpose of the Forum – one of the aims is to promote the role of the voluntary sector in mental health, which he believes in very strongly. A great deal of time is spent on structures and it becomes difficult to talk about service users sometimes. The membership is very varied, from large voluntary organisations to small community groups. There are more than 30 members, usually about 20 attend meetings. Information flow is very good. The meetings are not held in public, but anyone who is interested is welcome to attend. Services offered by the voluntary sector are very varied – one to one work, group work, support groups, activity groups, specialist services such as dual diagnosis and accommodation. Accommodation is a major issue. Current issues include Integration of Health and Social Care – significant for people with mental health problems. Rewiring of CYC Services
– already done with library services, also looking at other services.
Increased role for the VCS – should be doing more. Leeds & York
Partnership clearly need to do more with the sector, as budgets are so tight, and performance concerns – waiting times for talking therapies – everyone is aware, and out-of-area placements – someone from York was placed in London at the end of 2013. In summary, Mental Health is ‘the Cinderella Service’. Questions were raised about terminology and stigma attached to mental health issues. It has got better with the anti stigma campaigns.
Adam asked whether the presence of people from the statutory sector inhibited discussion, this was not felt to be the case. John was asked if the wider sector could do more. John replied by saying that volunteering opportunities are helpful, employers need to be more aware of the agenda- stress can be very problematic.
CVS support is very important. BBC3 series was helpful. c) VCS Forum for Learning Difficulties
Catherine presented apologies from the Chair, Roger Butterfield, who could not be with us. She gave a presentation to the group, which is attached for information.
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d) VCS Reference Group for Older People & People with Long Term
Conditions
Catherine presented apologies from the Chair, George Wood, and did a presentation on current issues (attached). e) VCS Forum for Children, Young People and Families
Catherine took over facilitating this Forum when Craig Waugh, CVS’ specialist worker, left last year. Catherine has attended the YorOK
Board and met the new Director of Children’s Services, Jon Stonehouse and the new Chair of the Safeguarding Children Board Simon
Westwood. Catherine has also facilitated a Children and Young
People’s Forum meeting, where significant topics included a big survey recently about sex education, which highlighted the need for significant additional education around cyber-sex – more training for those teaching it to keep up to date. f) Volunteering York Partnership
Matthew Hick (Chair) took over the chair in November from Angela
Portz. The partnership brings volunteer-involving organisations in York together to look at issues such as the social and economic advantages of involving volunteers. Launched youth volunteering award and York’s
Charter for Volunteering – both aimed at championing volunteering and improve volunteering practices in York. Over the last year and a half, there has been a dwindling attendance at the Group, this led to the last meeting being cancelled. We are reassessing the purpose of the group now. There is still a role for the partnership within York, great things have been achieved. VCS Strategy was written but never confirmed and published. We are now trying to address the issues section by section.
Garry reported that a bid was made to NESTA for an innovation project called Cities of Service, pioneered in New York, but the bid did not succeed. Has the partnership reached a natural end? Matthew hopes not. He would like to reinvigorate the partnership, look at new membership and renewing the terms of reference. It would be useful to have members of the partnership boards on board in the partnership.
Members currently included corporate organisations such as Aviva, schools, universities, City of York Council, York Minster. Need to clarify who is actively running the Forum – previously York CVS.
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3. Partnership Board Feedback a) Without Walls Board – Garry attended the last meeting which was a run through of all the sub-boards and partnership board structures.
Garry went through the current structures. The Health Inequalities
Board has never met. Sian, Healthwatch York, asked why, and there is an intention to do the work, but not as a committee. The Without
Walls Board still exists, although it’s not a statutory board. It has 7 or so sub committees. In theory, the Health and Wellbeing Board feeds into the WOW Board, but it doesn’t. The partnership boards sitting below the health and wellbeing board do not feed into the Health and
Wellbeing Board. How can we make better use of our voluntary sector representation on the Health and Wellbeing Board, for example? Does the Voluntary Sector Forum sit in the right place?
The lack of connection between the partnership boards and the health and wellbeing board was a matter for concern. Is it too early to be concerned? The Boards have only really been in place for 1 year, but it seems like a good time to review and get the process right.
Guidance on setting up and accountability – is it worth reading up about public law obligations? It ’s important that the chair of each partnership board sits on the health and wellbeing board. It was felt that this should be taken seriously. Garry and David Smith to meet with Councillor T S-L, the Chair of the Board, and ask for a deadline for responses. Support from the Forum was unanimous. b) Fairness & Equalities Board
There was no time for this discussion, some information is attached. c) Health and Wellbeing Board/CollaborativeTransformation Board
See item a) above.
4. VCS Leadership Group Feedback
No time for this discussion ...
5. Date of Next Meeting
Tuesday 15 th July at 10 am til 1 pm
Thursday 23 rd October at 2 pm to 4 pm.
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