The Voluntary and Community Sector Emergencies Partnership (Emergencies Partnership) is a government backed partnership between national and local voluntary and community sector organisations.
We, together with other local organisations, are working with them in responding to the evolving Covid-19 crisis and want to let you know what this means for our work supporting you.
About the Emergencies Partnership
Emergencies Partnership recognises the crucial role that the voluntary sector plays, both nationally and locally, to support those in need. They see the increasing demands made on the sector and are here as a safety net:
- To boost and enhance support from national to VCS organisations, and to help raise the profile of grassroots organisations
- To further strengthen coordination of national and local response efforts during emergencies
- To provide a single access point between government and the voluntary and community sector.
What the Emergencies Partnership does
The Emergencies Partnership has four strands of work:
- A national platform to gather intelligence on unmet need at national, regional and local levels
- A request for support service for when the demand for support outstrips the supply available to meet it
- Five regional multi-agency cells, with representatives from national and local voluntary organisations across England, to facilitate a more collaborative and coordinated response across the voluntary and community sector
- One national volunteering cell which has national overview and provides a single point of contact for requests for large-scale volunteer support.
Working with you
Each regional multi-agency cell is built on a network of “Liaison Leads” drawn from local infrastructure support organisations. Crawley Community Action are acting as the Lead for Sussex.
We can work together with the Emergencies Partnership to support you in the following ways:
Unmet need platform
We can share insights on specific emerging local needs, where people might be going without the support they need. This information can help in delivering the right support to the right people at the right time and any nationally significant insights can be shared with government.
Please get in touch to let us know if there are instances where demand for assistance at a local level outstrips supply and to what extent, for people:
– in urgent need of food
– in urgent need of healthcare
– in need of mental health support
– in need of temporary accommodation
– who experienced domestic violence
– in need of support to use online services
– in need of employment advice or training
– in need of financial support
– unable to pay for gas or electricity
Request for support service
We can seek additional support from the Emergencies Partnership for any specific needs which cannot be met through existing local networks.
We can feed such requests to the Partnership and this will be shared with representatives from voluntary organisations across England who can offer different kinds of support. We will then keep you updated with this request and the support.