As the Service Quality Director for The Camden Society I get to see firsthand the importance and the effects of our recent Being Heard/Coffee Morning project. As shown in our recent impact report, they proved to be a significant success, fostering a strong community spirit, supporting people to socialise, and providing essential support to individuals.
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Camden Society applied for funding from the National Lottery. We were fortunate enough to be awarded the funding and used it to organise social events in the form of coffee mornings. Our plan was to use these coffee mornings as a springboard to rebuild the confidence of people with a learning disability who had been shielding during the pandemic and to prepare people to integrate into their wider community.
These events really gave the people we support something to look forward to and provided them with an opportunity to get used to socialising again following what for some was a very traumatic period of time. They also tied into our Being Heard strategy and gave the people we support face to face time with key members of the organisation to discuss their support. We had 6 impact outcomes that we aimed to achieve:
- Reducing isolation: Going out into the community after the lockdowns
- Building confidence about meeting people and being out and about
- Building self-esteem
- Community awareness of opportunities
- Building relationships beyond people’s immediate support staff
- Providing face to face opportunities for people to discuss any challenges they may be having with their Service Quality Director
In total we held 77 coffee mornings across 6 of the areas we support which were attended by individual people. We used them to bring people from the local community together to create a kind of community hub. We were also lucky enough to have guests attend such as a Community Police Officer, and a representative from a local Housing Association, who saw the benefits of such events and were happy to answer the questions of attendees. These questions focused on keeping safe at home and in your community, and resolved any issues the attendees had with their housing.
On our feedback survey to gauge the success of these mornings 97% of people said they enjoyed the coffee morning and 81% said that they would attend the next one. My Executive Assistant, Jay, explains the success of them:
We had people who attended some and then stopped coming because they had began to access other areas of the community. These events were a stepping stone which gave them the confidence to go out and do other things. They were so important.
Going forward, funded by The Camden Society, the coffee mornings will be continuing in Oxford City. We will also be working with Thera Trust’s Strategic Fundraising Lead, Sarah, to identify new fundraising opportunities for similar projects in the future.
It has been wonderful in my role to see how successful this coffee morning project has been and I look forward to seeing how The Camden Society continues to help the people we support to build confidence and access their local communities.
If you are interested in fundraising to support our work further please contact [email protected].