Southern Brooks Community Partnerships

Strong Communities Powered By People

For over 30 years, Southern Brooks Community Partnerships has been working in South Gloucestershire to help build strong, resilient communities that value and celebrate diversity and provide accessible and appropriate services. Following recent events, Southern Brooks Community Partnerships stands in solidarity with BAME communities, and will continue to challenge discrimination and promote equality.

Support during the COVID-19 (Corona Virus) pandemic:

Southern Brooks is committed to working together to keep our staff, volunteers and people who use our services as safe and well as we can.

We are here to support communities across South Gloucestershire in coming together to find local solutions to make sure that as many people as possible stay healthy and connected. We can help with access to emergency food (along with Foodbank and Fareshare) and regular phone calls to check on people who may be a bit lonely and isolated.

In South Gloucestershire a large number of Community Mutual Aid groups have been established to offer support to those who are vulnerable and/or self-isolating. Most people will be in a position to make contact with these groups via social media or by checking on South Gloucestershire Council's website to arrange any support they need for themselves.

We recognise that there may be some adults who are not able to do this easily for themselves and who may need some help. South Gloucestershire Council, Southern Brooks Community Partnerships and CVS South Gloucestershire are working together with Mutual Aid groups and other organisations within the community to make sure that people in South Gloucestershire access the help and support they need to stay safe and well.

Southern Brooks can help put you in touch with Mutual Aid groups in your area, if you need help. We also are providing practical support such as shopping, collection of prescriptions, dog walking etc if it's not possible for other groups to do this.

We are here between 11am to 6pm Monday to Friday, and 12noon to 6pm Saturday - closed on Sundays.

Contact our team by ringing 0333 5774666 or email communitysupport@southernbrooks.org.uk.

Brooks Café and the Limes are now closed, along with all of our other sites of work, but that does not mean the staff have stopped working. Staff and volunteers are supporting community initiatives. All face to face work has stopped, but we are still here to support people through phone calls and emails and we are looking to use technology to continue our learning programmes.

Scroll down to see what our individual teams are doing. Our website will be regularly updated. Phone numbers and emails for individual staff can be easily found by clicking HERE. Please leave a message if there is no reply and they will return your call.

South Gloucestershire Council have provided guidance for communities, available HERE.

Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership has announced the launch of their new response line which will be open 24/7. Call 0300 303 1320. More details of the service can be found HERE.

Community Development and Volunteer Centres

We are currently very busy helping communities and community groups get the food they need at this difficult time. In Patchway we are working with Fairshare every Thursday to deliver food to vulnerable people. In Yate we are delivering donated food from supermarkets to local groups and organisations, for them to deliver to local people in need. In Kingswood we are working with Trussell Trust, local churches and volunteers to set up a network of support to ensure people can access the food they need.

Volunteer Centre colleagues are supporting this by contacting volunteers and organisations they have worked with to check on their situation - and collectively, with support from other colleagues, we are creating a database of local organisations and community groups across South Gloucestershire providing support to communities which we will make available as soon as it is complete. please check back for updates.

The Patch Youth Centre in Patchway

We have moved to an online platform on our Facebook page called The Patch. We will be posting fun activities to do during this time, the worst jokes, blogs, ideas on how to keep a healthy mind and body and positive messages. The Patch youth workers have created and delivered over 50 arts and crafts activity packs to children and young people all over Patchway and Charlton Hayes. We have also delivered sanitary items for young women and we are keeping in contact with the young people who attend the youth centre. We want to keep building relationships and to help support young people and their families during this time. If you need support from The Patch youth work team we are here for you please email ternayacummings@southernbrooks.org.uk or find us on Facebook at The Patch.

Social Prescribing

Southern Brooks are providing the social prescribing service to all GP surgeries in South Gloucestershire. Our link workers have been working with several surgeries to help patients improve their quality and life and well being since the beginning of the year.

Originally designed to help eliminate social isolation; we now help to facilitate it safely. Isolated does not have to mean lonely and our team are here for your well being. Social prescribing link workers will be able to help access deliveries, medications, welfare calls, liaise with agencies and facilitate food parcels to those in need. In these uncertain and worrying times our service is adapting rapidly. We are working closely with practice managers and GPs to make sure that we can offer support to everyone that may need it. GPs will be identifying those that are in most need of the social prescribing service and will be referring you to us.

There is nothing you need to do to access this service, if you are identified by your surgery, you will receive a call from a link worker.

As things change our service will adapt to meet the needs of patients in coordination with GP surgeries. Please check back for any further updates.

West of England Works

We are continuing to support clients over the phone, email and other virtual platforms. We offer 1-2-1 support to help clients into employment, education or training, which includes help with creating CV's, applying for jobs and interview preparation. We are still taking referrals for new clients and will complete assessments over the phone/online. To refer yourself or someone your supporting please use our online form found HERE.

Wellbeing

We have now moved to only offering online and phone support. We are working closely with South Gloucestershire Council to provide support for the most vulnerable people in these difficult times, and may have to make changes to the service we can provide whilst the Corona virus is ongoing. Please click HERE for the latest information about what is available.

Dementia Support

Whilst all Memory Cafes and The Limes day centre are currently closed, are Dementia team are busy offering support in other ways.

For information on services being offered in South Gloucestershire and how to help support those with Dementia, whilst keeping yourself safe, please read our latest Newsletter HERE.

Information about COVID-19 in multiple languages

Please find useful links below for translated Public Health England guidance on self-isolation and social distancing in languages including Arabic, French, Polish, Mandarin, Cantonese and Welsh.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-stay-at-home-guidance

Doctors of the World have produced Coronavirus (COVID-19) advice in 20 languages, which were produced in partnership with the Red Cross, Migrant Help and Clear Voice. Advice can be found HERE in the following languages:
English, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Bengali, Dari, Farsi, French, Hindi, Kurdish Surani, Malayalam, Mandarin, Pashto, Portuguese, Somali, Spanish, Tigrinya, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese, with Polish, Punjabi and Romanian coming soon.

Translated resources on NHS Test and Trace available in different formats (written and video) from Cambridgeshire County Council: https://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/residents/coronavirus/coronavirus-covid-19-test-and-trace#test-and-trace-information-in-other-languages-5-0

The Roma Support group have also shared the following resources:

Resources for the Roma Community: General information, messages from Roma community members, information for the Slovakian community, information in Romanes and information for the Romanian community

A video in Romanes about coronavirus

A leaflet in Romanes about Coronavirus

Video explaining social distancing in the Slovak Romanes dialect

Video explaining social distancing in the Romanian Romanes dialect

Child-friendly video "Coronavirus information for the Roma community: How to keep ourselves healthy!" in Romanes with English subtitles

Video in Slovak Romanes providing Covid 19 guidance and encouraging people to access NHS services