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The Inclusion Cornwall 2016 Annual Report“the primary role of Inclusion Cornwall is to challenge with diplomacy”

Chair of Inclusion Cornwall – David Sillifant

1. Continue to be pro-active and re-active to inclusion issues

2. Continue to support and lead the transformation of services

3. Manage the Inclusion Strategy for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly

4. To inform ongoing review and to evaluate and from this set direction and priorities

5. Development of Helston and the Lizard Works model.

6. Develop the Crisis Ladder and Prevention model

7. Inclusion Priorities

a. Mental Wellbeing

b. Housing

c. Skills and Learning

Inclusion Cornwall

2016 At a Glance

We have changed our name to Inclusion Cornwall (Hub) We have successfully progressed just under 3000 enquiries and referrals We have delivered Multi Agency Training to over 100 frontline workers The membership of our Resource Sharing network has doubled to 300 members We now have 23 resources sheets on our website, driven by identified need We are

working in partnership with Cornwall Council to support Benefit Cap families We continue to support Cornwall Council with their Discretionary Fund applicants We have processed 44 enabling fund applications We have been chosen as a model of best practice by the LGA We have devised the Inclusion Cornwall Crisis Ladder for prevention

December 2016

2 Andrea led the Inclusion Cornwall Steering Group – the crisis ladder was discussed

and the team were given the go ahead to develop the model further. Andrea finalised the Inclusion Contribution for the Cornwall Wide Equalities and

Diversity Group.  The group will no longer meet. Helston and the Lizard Workers Steering Group met and agreed to promote the

NALC award across the area.  The group also planned for attending the National Clerks conference in February 2017.  Bev reported that the community projects were progressing well.  Links with Work Routes (Reed Partnership DWP Provision) was welcomed.

We commenced planning for the 2017 Multi-agency training, this year it will be called, “Bringing Cornwall Together”

The Inclusion Cornwall Hub have been invited to attend the team meeting for all the Parent Support Advisor (PSA) in Cornwall. PSA’s are based in schools and are often the first point of contact for parents who are worried or struggling.

Ellie visited The Cove; The new Macmillan Centre based at Treliske hospital. The Cove offers support to those affected by cancer. They have a dedicated team of specialists who have been referring steadily since Ellie saw them.

November 2016

Andrea attended various strategic events including the Cornwall Housing Conference to discuss the future of housing in Cornwall, the Inclusion Cornwall Steering Group where Brexit, cohesion and housing were discussed and the Helston & Lizard Works Steering Group which included linking with new opportunities for customers.

Developed Crisis Scoring Ladder and used this to analyse 75 general enquiries – level of crisis and progression after our support. We will be taking this forward with 5 key partners early next year with a view to more clearly understanding who is presenting in crisis, where are they presenting, why are they presenting and what it takes to effectively help them.

Ellie attended the Westminster Employment Forum to talk with ministers and interested stakeholders about the governments green paper on  Work, Health and Disability.

Ellie and Jenny have met with Reed in Partnership who are the overall managers of the new DWP ESF back to work programme; Work Routes. Asa result of the meeting we are working with them to promote the support through our partnership network and we have also used them as a referral pathway for the customers we talk to.

We have started work within a partnership targeted at assisting people affected by the benefit cap. We have had 44 referrals and of these we have successfully engaged 26 people. We have only been working with them for a few weeks and already we have assisted 11% into work and 43% to engage with back to work support.

Ellie attended the Voluntary Sector Forum workshop on Tackling Multiple Disadvantage at which they evaluated how they used funding from Lankelly Chase to close the gap for people who have complex situations. You can find the full report here – http://cornwallvsf.org/promoting-change-project/

Ellie met with Gitin Chavda from the G4S partnership team to talk about effective partnership working in Cornwall under future funding streams.

Ellie and Jenny met with Frederick Foundation who offer business loans to business start ups with a view to further support, advice and referral the Hub can offer to its customers.

 October 2016

3 Helston and the Lizard Works,  co-ordinated by Inclusion Cornwall and led by

Helston Town Council, has been recognised at a national level – this time as one of the top 3 projects in the country by the National Association of Local Councils (NALC), at the prestigious Star Council Awards.

Policy in Practice report from Cornwall Council saw Inclusion Cornwall starting to supporting our 630 customer who may be affected by the benefit cap. The cap amount and the benefits that are affected by the cap will change on 7 November 2016.  Cornwall Council’s benefit cap information.

The Inclusion Cornwall team attended the Boscawen Farm Open Day with ROC and United Response to see in more detail the great support being provided to people with learning disabilities in Cornwall.

Andrea Gilbert, Inclusion Cornwall Manager has commenced working with the Devolution team at Cornwall Council looking at Employment and Skills at the local level and considering what we can ask of Government by way of local power.  Watch this space for a possible pilot area.

Inclusion Cornwall’s Cornwall Works Hub was delighted to start linking partners with Reed in Partnership. RiP is the prime provider for the DWP contract of 12.9 million supporting people back to work (directly delivering in the Coast to Coast area with  delivery partners in other areas Lizard Pathways (West Coast), Groundwork (South and East inc Liskeard), St Loyes (Atlantic and Moor).  They will work closely with lottery fund providers when known. The programme will engage 5,739 participants and outcomes relate to sustainable work; 38% in to work (with 32% sustained for 13 weeks and 28% to sustain for 26 weeks).  We will play an important role linking customers and partners with this new provision.  We are also in the early stages of planning multi-agency training for RiP.

Cornwall Works Hub, run by Inclusion Cornwall, has been working on joining all the Hubs in Cornwall together – a Hub of Hubs.  We met with colleagues from the Local Nature Partnership  to discuss the possible development of the Naturally Healthy Hub.  This meeting started the team thinking about how they refer customers to access the environment and how we use it to help well-being.

Andrea presented the outcomes and successes to the Localism Summit, in order to share the learnings and illustrate a successful community project in action. The audience consisted of town and parish councils and some VCS groups.

Ellie from our Cornwall Works Hub  spent the morning with Pat Walton at The Oasis centre in St Columb learning more about the services they offer to people who are vulnerable and isolated. This will enable us to continue to guide anyone who needs help in the St Columb area to their front door and, at a strategic level, we have agreed a future meeting, exploring how we can share their model of working in other Cornish communities.

 September 2016

Our steering group meeting took place and was very well attended. The results from the summer’s consultation were considered and priorities identified. Read more about the meeting outcomes here.

This month saw various meetings including Migrant Workers Group and Helston and the Lizard Works. Bev also attended the Central Heating Fund Seminar in London in early October.

We were very excited to receive the news that the Helston & the Lizard Works project had been shortlisted to the top 3 for Local Council Outstanding Project of the Year as part of the Star Council Awards run by the National Association of Local Councils.

Ellie attended a meeting hosted by Cornwall Residential Landlords Association which was also attended by the Housing Minister, Gavin Barwell. The meeting covered a host of issues related to housing provision as well as welfare reform, the impact of

4universal credit and the bedroom tax. Ellie was able to challenge and contribute her wealth of knowledge on the impact of these issues on residents of Cornwall. It was agreed that she would supply the Housing Minister with examples of families affected negatively by the welfare reforms.

Jennie attended disability awareness training organised through United Response on 29th September which provided very insightful information on Asperger’s and Dyslexia, and good networking opportunities with employers and agencies. This will benefit Jennie’s work in supporting customers with these conditions into the workplace.

Jennie was also successful in gaining funding from the Vicars Relief Fund for a housing deposit to support a homeless person into accommodation – which has the knock on effect of helping them back into work etc.

Jennie attended the Bude JCP communications meeting to promote the work of Inclusion Cornwall and the Cornwall Works Hub to the advisers, including the winter wellness project.

August 2016

Inclusion Cornwall’s manager, Andrea, met with Chris Guest – Southern Director of Jobcentre Plus at Helston Jobcentre. Chris is responsible for 112 Jobcentres across the South of England.  The visit to Helston Jobcentre allowed time for Chris  to speak with Andrea about the successes of the Helston and the Lizard Works project (funded by Jobcentre Plus until July 2016).  Chris watched the video showing how the project is led by Helston Town Council (the first in the country).  Andrea was able to explain they “smashed” the target of 40 into work achieving 104 instead.  Andrea was able to explain the particular needs of the area and how businesses and community groups were actively supporting our unemployed by being involved in their journey towards and into work.  Community projects that help the community and the unemployed were highlighted as well as businesses who are keen to give their time to inspire.

 

Jennie and Ellie visited Newquay Community Orchard to talk about their plans for the future of their employability skills programmes with young people and how we can continue to support the growth of these. http://newquayorchard.co.uk/ . This follows our initial support on where to get funding to deliver these skills projects.  

 

Ellie received great feedback from Cornwall Mobility “Thank you for sharing all your knowledge and being a great support in my mapping of services, I hope CMC can continue to build that relationship with you, and hopefully our paths will cross again in the future.” This was further to support and advice from Ellie who met with them to discuss linking their occupational therapy services to back to work programmes. This led to CMC working with Active Plus to deliver at least one of their modules titled “Overcoming Physical Impairment in the Workplace – A Rehabilitative Return to Work Programme”.

Cornwall Works Hub Conversations – around 5500 referrals since June 2014. 

Benefit Cap Conversations – we have started working with Cornwall Council to provide support to those who will be affected by the next benefit cap. It is too early to draw conclusions but, so far, the families we have talked to present with multiple and complex barriers. 

5 General Enquiries – since the last Welfare to Work Report in June 2016 we have

handled around 350 general enquiries. The majority continue to come from supporting professionals assessing advice and support for their customers.

 June/July 2016

Bev and Ellie attended the ESB Employment and Skills strategy refresh action planning workshops and following this meeting the final version of the updated strategy has now been launched. Claire Harris, Employment and Skills manager for the LEP said: “I would like to thank you all for your contribution and engagement with this strategy refresh and your expertise has been invaluable in shaping this strategy to 2030.

Ellie and Jennie have updated the resource sheets and were pleased to add lots of new things. They also created a new resource sheet listing the Clothes Banks, Wood Banks and Foodbanks. That makes a total of 18 thematic resource sheets underpinned by a resource sharing network actively used by over 250 frontline workers.

Andrea and Ellie have met with the TFF (Together for Families) commissioning team to discuss how Inclusion Cornwall and its Cornwall Works Hub can support the new TFF delivery framework. They advised how the expertise of Inclusion Cornwall and the Hub can ensure these families and the professionals that support them have access to up to date information and advice.

Jennie is developing links with the Occupational Therapy Department at Royal Cornwall Hospital. This is after receiving a referral from an occupational therapist at the Royal Cornwall Hospital and attending an appointment with the OT and lady concerned to give careers advice on a change of career taking into account the lady’s health issues. This should help to pave the way for further partnership working with RCHT OT Department.

 Andrea attended an important summit meeting with key organisations from around Cornwall to discuss the future for Cornwall post the EU Referendum. She commented “I was very pleased to be a part of this important discussion on Cornwall’s future and to ensure that inclusion priorities remain at the top of the agenda. It was an opportunity to bring together the various sectors and both sides of the ‘Brexit’ debate to work together to forge a successful outcome for Cornwall in the coming years.”

6 Andrea and her team celebrated the 2 year birthday of their Helston and Lizard Works Project supporting the community back into work. This came only a day after

the project was held up in parliament, by Derek Thomas MP, as a leading example of an innovative organisation that provided meaningful, measurable and positive outcomes for its community.

May 2016

Influencing on disability at a national level:  Following Andrea Gilbert’s attendance at a national workshop to discuss the work/health gap, Inclusion Cornwall’s expertise is in the frame again at another national event. This event discussed the forthcoming Government white paper on disability and its potential implications for those with a long term condition trying to move into the labour market.Cornwall Works Hub Manager, Ellie Moseley, attended the event to discuss various challenges, in particular supporting those with multiple and complex needs towards employment and independence, as well as the opportunities arising from devolution. 

Ellie’s expertise was welcomed at the event which was held in London and titled Halving the Gap: Making the Work and Health Programme work for disabled people. The key note presentation was by Rt Hon Norman Lamb MP, Shadow LD Spokesperson for Health and Chair, West Midlands Mental Health Commission.Ellie was able to contribute learnings from the nationally acclaimed Inclusion Cornwall and its economic arm Cornwall Works. Additionally Ellie is an expert in her own right with her paper Cornwall Works with Disabled People – Confident Recruitment for the Disabled published recently. She was also instrumental in securing Inclusion Cornwall’s highly commended status in the national RIDI (Recruitment Industry Disability Initiative) awards in 2015.If you would like to discuss this with Ellie please call 01872 326440.

Winter Wellbeing 2015/16Last Winter, we helped 1,560 households, with an initial contact was usually made through the Winter Wellness Freephone hotline, hosted by Community Energy Plus.

This led to the following help and assistance :

7 510 households referred to other partners for assistance; 250 energy monitors

distributed (CEP); 18 households referred to (Plymouth Energy Community) for energy advice and fuel

debt issues ; 11 households referred for gas boiler replacements (CEP programme, in addition to

Central Heating Fund); 97 households received energy and health advice – led to £250,000 of extra income (Age

UK); A further 1,000 households received energy advice (Cornwall Rural Community Charity

and Community Energy Plus); 381 consumer and frontline workers trained in energy efficiency during 2015/16

(Community Energy Plus); £430,000 saved by customers switching energy tariff/supplier (Community Energy

Switch).

The Winter Wellness Emergency Fund (run by Inclusion Cornwall), helped 317 households for help with: heating oil (33 households); coal, logs and wood (17); gas (key meter) (50); gas (account) (30); gas bottles/LPG (8); electric (pay card/key meter) (81); electric (account) (64); heating repairs (14) and no heating (20).

36% of customers of the Winter Wellness Emergency Fund also applied for and received £40,100 of “Welfare funds” (Discretionary Housing Payments, Crisis and Care Awards and/or help with Council Tax). An improved income, helped to reduce money worries.

11%* of customers of working age were supported to progress to work or remain in work (* this is likely to increase as this figure is pre follow up)

31% of customers were supported by Winter Fuel Payments, donated through Cornwall Community Foundation’s Surviving Winter campaign. They also received £23,500 of other funding (£11,945 Winter Wellness and £14,744 of help for customers with – rent (Discretionary Housing Payments), council tax and Crisis/Care Awards) (Cornwall Council).

Cornwall Homeless Hospital Discharge Project

Since January 2014, the project has received 216 referrals, with 169 receiving a safe and timely discharge. The remainder either have a home but no longer suitable due to their health or poor quality that contributed to their health problems. Savings to the NHS of nearly £70,000 a year.

Inclusion Cornwall, with St Petrocs, Shelter, Cornwall Council, Cornwall Housing, NHS, Health for Homeless and Coastline Housing are partners in the Cornwall Homeless Hospital Discharge project.

8 The project seeks to reduce the number of repeat hospital admissions and delayed

discharge from hospital by single homeless people who were medically fit to leave hospital but had no home to go.

The project started in January 2014, with a dedicated Homeless Patient Advisor (hosted by Shelter), taking referrals for any patients in hospitals in Cornwall (including Treliske, mental health and community hospitals).

Inclusion Cornwall manage the Homeless Hospital Discharge Enabling Fund to facilitate (where agencies are unable to) safe discharges that improve outcomes for homeless patients.

The Inclusion Hub Partnership Working

As ever our year has been busy supporting our partners and attending events. I have listed just of the most memorable/impactful below;

The RIDI Winners Event – All the award winners were invited to a glitzy event in the ‘Walkie Talkie’ Building. Ellie attended and invited Tim Bossenger from Cornwall Council along to learn more about best practice in the world of inclusive recruitment.

Warwickshire Council Case Study Visit – Inclusion Cornwall was chosen as a model of best practice in effective partnership working. We hosted and facilitated a meeting attended by Glen Robinson (Skills for Employment Programme Manager at Warwickshire County Council), Dave Simmonds OBE (Director at learning and Work Institute) and local partners (including JCP, Cornwall Council and Trelya) to discuss how and why our model works so well.

Health and Work – Earlier in the year Andrea Gilbert worked with the LGA on the replacement for The Work Programme. Ellie then attended an LGA event in London specifically on Health and Work and, later in the year, to input into the Work and Health Green paper.

Welfare Reform Impact – Andrea and Ellie went along to learn from a new report commissioned by Cornwall Council about the impacts for Cornwall.

Employment and Skills Strategy (LEP) Refresh – Bev and Ellie attended the action planning workshop. The strategy is now live and will shape the landscape until 2030.

Disability Confident – Ellie updated her article aimed at professionals wishing to support disabled customers in to work; containing personal insights, a practical toolkit and a list of resources. It builds the article that was published in a national life coaching magazine last year. http://inclusioncornwall.co.uk/practice/projects/cornwall-works-2/disability-confident/

Coastline Jobs fayre – Jennie attended Cornwall Sports Partnership Physical Activity Summit Jennie attended and linked the

Inclusion Strategy to this new area of inclusion Cornwall Careers Show Jennie attended and supported

9 Between the team we attended the locality meetings for all the Health Visitors and

School Nurses in Cornwall. Housing and Homelessness - Ellie attended two St Martins in Fields events both

locally and in London. These were aimed at building a frontline network to support vulnerable homeless people. Ellie and Bev also attended the St Petrocs Homelessness conference , Andrea the Cornwall Housing conference and Ellie the Shelter 50 Years On housing conference.

Bev and Andrea Launched Winter Wellbeing on the Isles of Scilly working with CRCC for tarriff checks.

Ellie and Jennie carried out a joint work shadowing with staff from Redruth Jobcentre

General Enquiries and Referrals

Over the last year we have had a total of 2828 enquires;

Formal Hub Conversation Referrals (BC and Discretionary) 1435 (51%) General Enquires 1395 (49%)

We are able to answer 88% of all our general enquiries at first point of contact. The most popular reason for contact was for advice on the following;

1. Health and Wellbeing2. Employment3. Skills and Training

NB These mirror our Inclusion Priorities

The 12% of general enquiries that required follow up were slightly different in focus;

1. Crisis – immediate financial need2. Health and Wellbeing3. Housing

Since mid Sept we have been specifically recording the number of our general enquiries that are driven by a crisis need; 13%. This, along with anecdotal evidence from partners, led us to develop the Inclusion Cornwall Crisis ladder. Please refer to the relevant section of this report for more information.

Hub Conversations

We continued with our Discretionary Fund referrals but we also became part of a multi-agency partnership designed to assist Benefit Cap households and from Aug we started to get these extra referrals.

10In February we changed to a new spreadsheet which enables us to break down progression to different levels;

Level Description Progression Points

One Signposted. No follow up. 1Two S-posted / Ref’d. Follow up occurred. Evidence of ‘soft’ progression. 2Three Volunteering / Work Placement 3Four Engaged with / active on provision 4Five Started employment or improved employment 5

Hub Conversations through Cornwall Council Discretionary Referrals

There have been 1378 referrals this year and were able to support 1081 (the remaining 297 is currently in our system). The rest of this section will refer to the 1081 customers on the new spreadsheet.

Of the 1081 formal discretionary fund referrals that we have actioned since Feb 2016 we can see that;

43% Engaged (464) 30% Unable to contact (330) 20% Needed further support but did not want to engage (214) 7% Already had support or did not feel they required any more support (32)

When we first started using this model of warm calling we studied similar models to know what we should be aiming for in terms of engagement. We couldn’t find any directly comparable models being used in the area of social work so we drew from sales calling models. Based on these we set our target conversion to engagement rate at 15%. In the first 2 years our typical engagement rate was approximately 30%. In the last year it has jumped to 43%.

We believe this increase is due to a a combination of two things; increased provision of email addresses (which has engaged a small number who would not have otherwise engaged), we are continually adapting the way we carry out the conversations and Our engagement techniques have improved. If we examine our engagement rate only in terms of the people we have actually managed to speak to you can see that we actually convert 71% into engagement and progression.

Please see below for information on the cohort of 426 we engaged in 2016;

Progress Level Numbers Achieving

Level 1 162Level 2 220Level 3 1Level 4 57Level 5 15

11Below is a breakdown of support areas we assisted with (some people wanted help in multiple areas).

- Addiction 4

- Benefits 101

- Carers 11

- Debt/Money 183

- Digital 7

- Dom Abuse 3

- Employment 119

- Health 70

- Housing 135

- Offending 1

- Other 60

- Skills 89

- Social Care 12

Case Study – Young Family with complex needs

A young family with a new born baby were referred after they have applied to Cornwall Council for crisis help. The dad had been trained as a chef and had been working in a prestigious restaurant in London. He was unable to stay in work following the birth of their child; the mum has hearing issues and felt unable to care for the baby without being able to hear if / when the baby was crying. She had been given hearing aids from her social worker but they were uncomfortable to wear and not very effective so they had to spend their money on a new set. The dad gave up his job and came back to Cornwall so they were near her family support networks. They moved in to a private rented property and applied for tax credits and JSA. The dad found a job and signed off but the job never materialised. A combination of delayed tax credits award, JSA interruption and money spent on hearing aids meant that when they were referred to us they were in dire financial need. They had been issued with a NTQ and were due to go to court the following week for council tax arrears of £67.

EM began by stabilising the immediate situation. She contacted the local foodbank and arranged for them to access a food parcel that day. She also contacted Council Tax and identified the household as vulnerable. Cornwall Council agreed to recall the court hearing if the £67 arrears could be cleared in a week. EM contacted the Poverty Forum who agreed to pay the £67 and EM paid their cheque into the OSS herself to ensure the 7 day deadline was met.

During this time EM also spoke to his housing officer and negotiated a tenancy saver package which she presented to the landlord. Unfortunately the landlord was unwilling to keep the couple in the property because the funding offered only met half the arrears owed. EM then put them in contact with Shelter who appointed them a solicitor. The solicitor was successful in defending the eviction and in the 2 weeks that followed EM assisted the family to bid for properties on Homechoice. They were offered a DCH property and moved in only a few days before Christmas. EM is now assisting the dad to engage with support to get him back to work.

12Hub Conversations for Benefit Cap Referrals (since Aug 16)

There have been 57 referrals so far

58% Engaged (33) 24% Unable to contact (14) 18% Needed further support but did not want to engage (10) 0% Already had support or did not feel they required any more support (0)

Of the 33 engaged since August the following has been achieved;

We have helped 4 people to go in to work We have assisted 11 people to access back to work support 15 were assisted to apply for Winter Wellness funding 10 were assisted to engage with other support such as debt advice or benefits help

Progress Level Numbers Achieving

Level 1 8Level 2 10Level 3 0Level 4 11Level 5 4

Case Study – Benefit Cap Household

A couple with four children had their HB capped to 0.50p. They were referred to us for a general chat about progression. Initially they were not keen to engage unless the outcome involved giving them money or paying off their bills. At the customer’s choice most of the interactions took place by email and it was not unusual for EM to receive 5 emails a day from them. Often these emails were challenging in tone and it would have been very easy to disconnect on the basis of their rude tone. However EM kept replying and showing an interest, asking the customer to explain their point of view so she could fully understand what they needed to move forward. They were not considering work as an option and conversations involved some reality checking what they needed to do themselves in order to progress. It took four weeks of back and forth emails before the father agreed to talk to someone about back to work support. EM made the referral to Work Routes and the customer engaged with them. They talked about work and HG felt so motivated that he applied for a job with a care company. He emailed EM last week to proudly tell her that he had been offered the job to start after Christmas. He will continue to get support from Work Routes for up to 6 months after he starts work. We also helped them out with an oil delivery funded through Winter Wellness.

Inclusion Cornwall Crisis Ladder

Over the last 6 months we have seen a rise in people presenting in crisis. Partners have also been telling us that they have been struggling to keep up with demand for crisis support. In the IC Hub we started to specifically record and monitor our enquiries from mid-September and we have found that around 13% relate to crisis situations. This started us thinking about four things; the structure of crisis, the drivers of crisis, how to effectively stabilise and how to assist progression beyond so as to aid prevention of future crisis.

13We devised the Inclusion Cornwall Crisis Ladder as a tool for us to capture some of this information;

We scored 75 customers who were referred to us from across the whole range of our services over the last 12 months. We found that people were more likely to present in crisis where they had an immediate financial need and multiple background factors impacting their situation, especially when one of those factors related to a health issue. We have called these back ground factors ‘Multipliers’ and they can include anything which may make it more difficult for someone to access a service. Please refer to the tables below for more information;

Multiplier Number Presenting

% of Cohort

Health Issues 42 56%Fuel Poverty (can’t eat/heat) 22 29%Benefit Issues 21 28%Housing and Homelessness 20 27%Isolation and Access Issues 17 23%Lone Parent 15 20%Debt 12 16%Carer 7 9%In Work Poverty 6 8%Job Loss 6 8%Ex Offender 5 7%Victim of Crime 5 7%LDD/Advocacy Needs 4 5%Young Person 3 4%Relationship Breakdown 3 4%Addiction 3 4%Older Person 2 4%Potentially Violent 2 3%Basic Skills Need 3 3%Veteran 1 1%

Combinations of Multipliers Numbers Presenting % of Cohort0 2 3%1 12 16%2 20 27%3 22 29%4+ 19 25%All percentages have been rounded up

Once we had a snapshot of presenting need we also recorded the progression; how many ladder rungs we assisted the family or individual to climb. See below.

No. of Rungs Climbed No. Achieved % of Cohort9 (maximum) 2 38 1 17 11 156 11 15

145 10 134 9 123 11 152 9 121 10 130 1 1

From the rungs we can identify 59% moving up six rungs (9 being the maximum).

Of this cohort 4 were assisted in to work. Two of these were people we help moved from the lowest score of -5 to the highest score of 5; both presented with 4 or more multipliers and were very far from thinking about employment. We were able to help them to stabilise and then supported them to think beyond the crisis.

Our next step is to take this model and pilot it with key partners.

Enabling Fund

We had 44 applications in 2016. Outcomes were;

68% Approved (30) 1% Declined (1) 10% Unable to progress due to lack of information or response (4) 21% Assisted to find funding elsewhere (9)

Total Spend = £5050 (rounded down)

Average award = £168

19 families were assisted with household goods 7 families were assisted to prevent homeless or take up an offer of housing 7 families in crisis were supported with emergency needs 5 families were supported to move in to employment or keep an existing job 4 families were supported with health and wellbeing needs 2 families were assisted out of fuel poverty

Underpinning each application is our ethos of upskilling knowledge about wrap around support; those things that can also be offered to the family to maximise sustainable changes. This may be signposting to other funding sources and may also be assisting the family to access a support service for things like debt or finding work. Of the 44 applications we received we were able to use our expertise and knowledge to direct 75% (33) to wrap around support not already in place.

Case Study

A woman rang our general enquiry line after being signposted to us by the Cornwall Council access team. She could barely speak for crying; she described living with her 4 children in a lean-to on the side of an outbuilding. There was no mains electricity and her 2 generators had broken down in the middle of November leaving them with no heating or light. She runs a self-employed business and had moved onto the business site after a relationship breakdown several months earlier. The business is seasonal and she had no savings to see her through the winter months. The woman had

15rung in for advice about how to access funding for the generator but it became clear she actually needed to access business support/advice and help to move to more suitable housing. The woman was reticent to consider moving because needed to be on site (or near the site) to tend to her animals and didn’t think she could manage that alongside the school run if she lived very far away. EM contacted the family social worker and between them they got her to start looking for private accommodation (she could have applied as homeless but as there was no guarantee she would be placed in local temporary accommodation and she would not have been able to keep the business going). EM assisted the social worker to understand the available funding through the Homeless Prevention Funds and also through charitable sources. A house was found near her business and between Cornwall Council and The Vicars Relief Fund £1500 was raised to cover move in costs. Not all of this funding was immediately available so EM negotiated with the landlord that she could move in a week earlier than the money was available so the family could be in for Christmas. EM then assisted the family to apply for funding for the household items they would need.

During all of this EM spoke to the Growth Hub and arranged for someone to contact the woman about business advice. Initial conversations showed the business as a viable long term option with some help, advice and funding to get things back on track. A referral to The Fredericks Foundation was made and she is being assisted to get funding for brown signs to advertise her business and she has been allocated a business mentor who will help her with the logistical side of running the business until she feels more confident.

Careers South West

Jennie Lacey continues on her successful secondment with us and she has provided the following report of her activity over the last year;There has been a about 2 health park referrals a month from Truro Health Park, who have been looking specifically at careers support as a result of changes in individuals health.  Further career and skills referrals have come from Winter Wellness and Inclusion Cornwall Hub Conservations.  391 have been contacted since February, with 145 people currently receiving ongoing support.

Continued to offer support with Helston and the Lizard Works Project, arranging face to face appointments with customers in Helston job centre, and maintaining the links with the Job Centre.    Attending Active Plus job club each month to talk about CVs and job searching and signing up new people to the project.

What I like most about my job is being able to offer a holistic approach to our customers to support them move forward, and realising that a little information can go along.

Case study

PR was referred to me from the Health Park in April 2015. He was looking for a change of career He was currently employed by cleaning company, and waiting to be made redundant. PR is looking for office work ideally around health and safety, art administrator roles or possibly teaching – He has a love of art, and has had his own studio in the past. His health is now restricting the work he can do, and needs flexibility with job roles. Signposted PR to a training provider for a Preparing to Teaching in the Lifelong Learning Sector qualification course. PR completed the course and has started volunteering as a facilitator for some of the training providers other courses.

16Further information was sent out on organisations he may be interested in including arts for health and health trainers for further volunteering or employment opportunities. PR has been struggling with his change of benefits from SSP to ESA and how this affects his Housing Benefits and general benefits and support he can access. Referral was made Cornwall Housing for benefit support.

In September 2016 PR started on a foundation degree course in Art, and also secured a Part time seasonal work at a local Museum.

PR was still having some trouble with clarifying his eligibility for additional financial support. He was left with a dental bill to pay, and also worried about impact his student loan will have on his Housing benefit. Further links and support were sent out on how to claim for reduced prescription, and further funding that may be able to help with his degree course.

Multi Agency Training

Over 100 frontline workers, and some managers, attended at least one of these sessions. Originally scheduled across two events, demand was so high that we quickly had to add a third event. Presentations covered a wide range of topics including ESF Funding, Together for Families, Coastline Direct Payments Pilot, Bodmin Policing Hub, Addiction support services, mirgrant worker support, universal credit, probation services and mental health support. Attendees also came from a wide range of partners including health, schools, social care, police, Housing and Foodbanks.

Feedback from one attendee;

‘Many thanks for the networking event yesterday.  It was absolutely brilliant.  It was everything I would want from an event.  It was meaningful, interesting, interactive, well-paced and had exactly the right mix and timings of presentations, breakout sessions, group work etc.

The event was highly relevant to me, and will benefit my role hugely.  I have made some excellent links with colleagues in other agencies.’

We are currently planning our 2017 multi agency training for March. Spaces are already in demand.

Multi Agency Resource Sharing Network

Following the Multi Agency Training in 2015 this network was set up in response to demand from frontline workers who wanted a way to keep up to date with activity, opportunity and good news. They also wanted a network through which they could ask for advice and raise issues. Coordinated by Ellie the information comes in to the Hub and fed back out either to the whole group or relevant sections of the group. There are now around 300 direct members but we know the distribution reach is actually much wider. This network is now a key way reaching our partners, on average one email a day is sent keeping partners informed of new opportunities for our shared customers.

Case Study – Outcome for a family in crisis

Family in temporary accommodation offered permanent accommodation but could not afford to move. Already in crisis due to new baby and waiting for benefits to be processed following job loss. The family immediately needed petrol, food and a baby car seat. EM emailed the resource sharing network and within 2 hours someone from the local church had met the family and given them a food

17parcel along with £15 cash for petrol. Within 24 hours they had also accessed a car seat and several other items of baby equipment along with another food parcel from the foodbank. They were able to accept the accommodation and move in. Our careers and skills specialist, Jennie, then worked with the dad to get him back to work.

Case Study – Outcome for a member of the network

At the multi-agency training in Feb 2016 an attendee came up to Ellie and thanked her for helping her find the job she had always wanted on a youth contract. Ellie occasionally sends out vacancies from partner organisations. This attendee had successfully applied for one and later, when she was responsible for advertising a vacancy, the first place she sent to was to Ellie to send around the network – before it was publically advertised.

Resources

We now have 23 resource sheets on our website. 20 of these were developed by Inclusion Cornwall and we get regular positive feedback about their usefulness. They can be found here - http://inclusioncornwall.co.uk/resources/library/ . We update them every 6 months and they are due an update soon so please let us know if you spot anything that is no longer accurate or that needs to be added.