Southern Brooks Community Partnerships has recently achieved the Trusted Charity Mark award recognising the excellent work it does as a third sector organisation in England. Julie Close, director of Southern Brooks, said “I’m delighted. The services that we provide are so important and that we have achieved the Level 2 Trusted Charity Mark, previously PQASSO, is a testament to the hard work of all our staff and volunteers.”

Trusted Charity is part of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) and is the only UK quality standard designed to help third sector organisations operate more effectively and efficiently. Southern Brooks was assessed against the 11 standards of effective practice in Trusted Charity, including in governance, leadership and management, managing staff and volunteers and managing money, and proved to meet all standards.

Southern Brooks Community Partnerships’ mission is to help people fulfil their potential and to contribute to their communities. We aim to build sustainable communities by improving community cohesion, reducing poverty, reducing loneliness and reducing isolation. We work to understand local needs and bring people together to find better ways of doing things. In our community café and youth centre people can connect, try new things and get support to make changes in their lives and communities. We work with families, older people, children and young people and provide them with practical support, from training courses to job clubs to one-to-one support.

Nadeem Razvi, Trusted Charity Programme Manager, NCVO said “We are delighted for the trustees, staff and volunteers of Southern Brooks that they have achieved the Trusted Charity Mark. We know that organisations using the Trusted Charity standard benefit by having better governance, better systems and procedures and better quality of services for their users and it is great that the community of Trusted Charity users in England is growing”.

For more information on the award visit https://www.ncvo.org.uk/practical-support/quality-and-standards/trusted-charity