Suffolk ACRE

How does a scheme help?

Good Neighbour Schemes benefit any community by helping to knit the community together and building new friendships between villagers. A team of volunteers is raised to help with

• Transport – giving people lifts to hospitals, doctors surgeries, shops or social trips
• Domestic tasks – changing lightbulbs, testing smoke alarms, moving furniture and many other household jobs
• Mobility problems – volunteers can help by collecting prescriptions and pensions, shopping and posting letters for anyone who is incapacitated
• Befriending – visiting the lonely or bereaved to give emotional support
• Advocacy – help with letter writing or filling in forms

Outside jobs – occasional garden tidying, dog walking and other odd jobs

All the services are offered free with the exception of giving lifts for which the driver is compensated for his/her running costs by the client, usually at 35 pence per mile. 

Demand for a Good Neighbour Scheme is usually identified in Parish Plans, though some schemes have come about from a direct approach from parish councils and other local groups. The co-ordinator post has received funding from a variety of sources over the past seven years including the East of England Development Agency (EEDA), the European Social Fund (ESF), Suffolk County Council, PCTs across the county, Suffolk Rural Transport Partnership, Lloyds TSB, Mid Suffolk District Council and Local Strategic Partnership (LSP), West Suffolk and Babergh LSPs, the Rank Foundation and the Charles Hayward Foundation.

 The co-ordinator role is shared between two people: Robert Horn works with schemes in Ipswich, Babergh, Mid Suffolk, St Edmundsbury and Forest Heath districts. Schemes in Suffolk Coastal and Waveney districts are looked after by Nat Bocking. 

 

There are 21 schemes that are now up and running around the county and a further 11 villages are considering or actively planning to set up a scheme. Suffolk ACRE has developed a toolkit which helps communities to set up and launch their own scheme, and provide guidelines for volunteers. Since the Good Neighbour Scheme was featured on The One Show on BBC 1 the toolkit has been sold to twelve more out-of-county organisations.

The co-ordinator will help each community to raise a team of volunteers and develop a steering group for each individual scheme. He sits in at meetings of each steering group, advising on matters such as insurance, criminal record checks on volunteers, identity cards, and sourcing a start-up grant.

Each scheme revolves around a mobile phone, which is held in turn by a core group of volunteers who match the need of a caller to a volunteer who has offered to help in that particular way. It is a system which spreads the load and does not put pressure on any volunteer to do everything on the list.

A start-up grant of at least £500 is sourced for each scheme, which pays for a mobile phone; Public Liability and Group Personal Accident Insurance; criminal record (CRB) checks on volunteers £7.50 each via the Suffolk Association of Voluntary Organisations (SAVO) identity cards for volunteers, publicity and stationery. 

The original co-ordinator of the schemes, Gavin Hodge who helped to set up most of the schemes running today, describes the Good Neighbour Schemes in this way:

"Every community has good-hearted people who automatically help their neighbours, but the aim of the Good Neighbour Scheme is to fill any gaps in this network of care in a community and to put help within reach of every resident of a community.”

Good Neighbour Schemes provide a structured way of volunteering with support from Suffolk ACRE. All volunteers are subject to CRB checks to help build confidence in the scheme locally. There are regular network forums at Suffolk ACRE's HQ in Ipswich, which invite two members from each scheme to come and talk through any problems that have arisen and share good practices.

It is important for a scheme to be formally set up using the Suffolk ACRE method. The establishing of a constitution and bank account allows the scheme to take out insurance. Public liability and personal accident insurance can be combined to protect both the volunteers and members of the public.

Most start-up grants have been sourced from county councillors’ Locality Budgets as well as a variety of other sources. Once it is up and running each scheme needs to be self sustaining through fund-raising and donations. 

As a result of work with the Good Neighbour Scheme Suffolk ACRE was invited to join the Safe & Sound Group, a police-led multi-agency panel which combats distraction burglaries. Consequently, individual Good Neighbour Schemes have signed up to an initiative called Nominated Neighbour which helps safeguard elderly and vulnerable people from bogus doorstep callers.
 

Suffolk ACRE is also involved with the Suffolk Older People's Strategic Partnership Board which advises on policy for older people in the county, and the Rural Coffee Caravan Information Project. This is a unique service comprising a mobile resource which visits Suffolk villages, providing a focal point for villages that lack basic facilities and acting as a source of information on local services, training, courses, and self-help. The manager and volunteer staff can signpost visitors to the caravan to a wide variety of help available in the county, such as resources for carers. Free coffee, tea and cakes are provided and donations requested.

The Good neighbour Scheme co-ordinators can be contacted at Suffolk ACRE on 01473 345300 (main switchboard).

Robert Horn

(for Ipswich, Mid Suffolk, Babergh, St Edmundsbury & Forest Heath)

Direct Line 01473 345359

robert.horn@suffolkacre.org.uk

Nat Bocking

(for Suffolk Coastal & Waveney)

Mobile 07787 258137

nat.bocking@suffolkacre.org.uk