CSJ Alliance News 10 February 2011
XLP
Patrick Regan, CEO of Alliance member XLP, based in South London, spoke to London Tonight on 12th October on the problem of gang culture, and what can be done about it. Patrick has been working tirelessly with his team to raise awareness of this issue, whilst working with young people to raise their self-esteem and empower them to make better life choices. Click here to watch Patrick's interview.
Straight Talking
Hilary Pannack, CEO of the national teen pregnancy charity Straight Talking, is heading up a 'coalition' with the CSJ and other organisations that is pulling together a comprehensive teenage pregnancy strategy for Government. Hilary went into the Cabinet Office with Samantha Callan, Family and Early Intervention expert at the CSJ, on 2nd February to discuss this. Straight Talking spoke to the Government's Behavioural Insights team, along with the Teenage Pregnancy Unit and Department of Education, and the will endeavour to work with thim to create an effective grass roots approach to battling teen pregnancy. Congratulations to Hilary on her exciting meeting!
Help inform the Third Sector
Pauline Broomhead from the Foundation for Social Improvement is currently undertaking a Skills Gap Survey of the Third Sector. So far she has amassed information from a broad range of charities, and on 13th April Pauline will be launching the results of her survey which will go on to inform how the sector uses its capacity building budgets. She is still looking for more responses and would welcome any CSJ Alliance members to take part. To take part in Pauline's survey, please click here.
The CSJ Alliance is delighted to welcome the following new members:
Anchor House
: In his six years as director of Anchor House, Keith Furnett has managed to turn a once struggling charity into a successful residential life skills centre for homeless people and the neighbouring community. With 118 beds, Anchor House provides a training programme, an 'Aspirations Programme', and offers many volunteering opportunities to homeless people between the ages of 20 - 60. We visited Anchor House on 5th
January and were impressed by their vision and future plans, including a massive rebuilding project to create a centre which maximizes the space available to benefit not only those living there but also the surrounding community.
Insights for Life: Family breakdown continues to be a problem that plagues Britain, so we were excited to learn of the great work being done by Insights for Life. Insights for Life exists to provide education and support for parents and prospective parents, in order to strengthen and enrich family life and relationships. A commitment to early intervention motivates and informs all the work. Insights for Life runs the 'As 2 Become 3' project which offers courses to equip couples and dads-to-be with the skills to foresee, plan for and deal with the various changes that a couple's relationship goes through when they have their first child. The charity also aims to influence policy, to ensure the process of becoming parents is conducive to couples staying together and building a stronger relationship.
My Generation
: Based in West London, My Generation has been targeting poor urban communities over the past four years, offering positive solutions that challenge the people in these communities to break the cycle of poverty, crime and ill-health. They run a wide range of programmes, including the
Step Up initiative, which engages in schools with both children and their parents and aims to remove negative attitudes to education, as well as football clubs which not only encourage long-term contact with positive adults but also self-discipline, teamwork and leadership skills and they also offer a job club.
The CSJ Alliance is the growing network of voluntary groups identified by the CSJ as doing exceptional work in tackling poverty and its causes within local communities across the UK. The mission of the CSJ is to put social justice at the heart of British politics and to build an alliance of poverty fighting organisations in order to see a reversal of social breakdown in the UK.
The CSJ Alliance News Update is for members of the CSJ Alliance and poverty fighting groups who want to know more about the CSJ.
