London Covid-19 Response: Bulletin 6

From the Funding, Community and Voluntary Sector cell of the London Covid-19 Strategic Coordinating Group. This weeks bulletin includes links to the community response survey, the GLA’s business support for community organisations and the food foundations findings  about the impact of COVID-19 on the UK’s food system.

Funding

The government announced on May 1^st that up to £617 million would be made available through the Local Authorities Discretionary Fund. The fund is aimed at small businesses with ongoing fixed property-related costs. The government is asking local authorities to prioritise, among others, small charity properties that would meet the criteria for Small Business Rates Relief.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has launched a new emergency £2.3m fund to support culture and creative industries at risk due to the impact of the coronavirus. The Mayor is working with the Music Venue Trust, the LGBTQ+ Venues Forum, the Creative Land Trust and BFI to help venues and artists across the capital through the new Culture at Risk Business Support Fund.

The London Community Response Fund will consider applications from organisations providing access to additional specialist supervision, counselling or support services for their team, or increased or different supervision and support for their volunteers through this time. 

Businesses Support for Community Organisations

The GLA and its partners are consolidating a wide range of offers from the capital’s businesses to assist the response to Covid-19.  A list of more than 300 offers includes:

• Space for business operations or storage across the city, with types of premises ranging from local businesses, universities, malls and football clubs.
• Numerous transport and delivery opportunities, including free taxi rides and minibuses.
• A range of digital offerings, with platforms and Amazon support.

If you would like to sign up to receive the weekly-updated mailing list, the opportunity to request an offer, or to inform them of a need not listed, please contact Covid.InKind@london.gov.uk 

Digital Learning and Advice

An early version of the service recipes for charities platform is now live and is the result of the collaboration of Catalyst with FutureGov, Snook and CAST. It collects practical examples to help charities reuse and learn from one another’s digital services, which it refers to as recipes. They show the ingredients and steps needed to deliver a service. By charities, for charities, for inspiration or straightforward implementation. These recipes can be reused as they are, or tweaked as necessary.

The Red Cross is sharing its on-line training, designed for people who are going to be deployed to respond to the coronavirus outbreak. It tells you what you need to know and do in preparation for deployment, with key information on looking after yourselves and others. The content of the course will be constantly updated to reflect the latest changes and government advice. It takes around 30 minutes to complete. Access the course by:

• Clicking https://www.redcross.org.uk/coronavirus-staff-vol-info
• Scrolling down to the training section
• Selecting ‘Start the training if you are from another organisation’

Homeless Link are providing weekly online sessions for hotel staff around Mental Health First Aid.

Session 1: 7th May at 2:15pm – register for the session here

Session 2: 14^th May at 2:15pm – register for the session here

Session 3: 21^st May at 2:15pm – register for the session here 
Session 4: 28^th May at 2:15pm – register for the session here

Food

The Food Foundation has published a third poll on the impact of Covid-19 on the UK’s food system, which revealed that five million people in UK households with children have experienced food insecurity after just a month of lockdown. It found that 2.4 million children are living in food insecure households, and that over 200,000 children have had to skip meals because their family couldn’t access sufficient food during lockdown.

London, the South West, the North West and Scotland have the highest prevalence of food insecurity in households with children. Testimonies of young people sharing their experiences can be heard here. A webinar with panellists from the Food Foundation, Kings College, IFAN and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation can be viewed here.

Community Response Survey

The Community Response Survey goes out weekly and asks civil society organisations who work in London a number of questions to understand the impact of Covid-19 and associated policy measures, such as social distancing, on vulnerable populations in the capital. The work is being led by the GLA and London Plus and its results can be found here.

Met Police campaign

The Met Police has launched a new social media campaign to thank all Londoners who have followed the government guidelines by staying at home. They are urging the public to keep going and following these rules to beat COVID-19. Partners are encouraged to share the video.