1. Local Authority Duties - Olvia Fellas, NRPF Network
2. Meeting the Needs of Children - Christina Enright, Kids Company
3. Legal Frameworks:Asylum Law & Community Care - Maggie Crowley, Asylum Aid; Sue Willman, Pierce Glynn Solicitors
4. Therapeutic Casework: Best Practice - Elena Hage, Refugee Council

• A speaker from Common Purpose, covering Leadership and Management training.
• The role of the Train to Gain brokers will be explained and
• A Third Sector guest speaker will examine how Train to Gain works for us.
• Workshops during the day will also look at the training needs of the sector's staff.

• Charity law seminar
  Thursday 12 February 2009, 9.45am–12pm
  A free seminar introducing the essentials of charity law. A good introduction for those new to working in the voluntary sector – and a useful refresher for those with more experience.
  
• Negotiation and representation skills
  Friday 13 February, 9.45am–4.30pm
  The morning introduces the principles of effective negotiation, and looks at how to be clear and coherent in negotiations. The afternoon session focuses on how to represent the views or experience of your organisation, or of a community.
  
• Writing a fundraising strategy
  18 February 2009, 9.45am–4.30pm
  This course takes a practical look at fundraising. What are the most effective sources of funding? Why is a fundraising strategy important? How do you encourage potential funders to support your work
  
• Partnership working
  25 February 2009, 9.45am-4.30pm
  This course provides a working insight into the purpose, structures and management of voluntary sector partnerships. Learn about the benefits and pitfalls of partnership working and get tips and tools to create and maintain effective partnerships.

Community Accountancy Self Help (CASH) is a charity based in West London, providing financial management support advice and training for voluntary and community groups across London. They organise Financial Management Training for BME and Refugee Voluntary and Community Groups called “Six Steps to Better Financial Management”. This course is modular – you can take as many or as few modules as you need.

• Module 1 - Budgets and Cash-flow (Thursday, 12 February 2009 9.45 am – 4.00 pm)
  Budgets are used for grant applications and for your internal financial control.
• Module 2 - Basic Book-keeping (Thursday, 26 February 2009 9.45 am – 4.00 pm)
  For small organisations, up to £150,000 a year income/expenditure.
• Module 3 - Bank Reconciliation (Thursday, 5 March 2009 9.45 am – 1.00 pm)
  This module can be taken by itself, or as an extension of Basic Book-keeping.
• Module 4 - Petty Cash (Thursday, 5 March 2009 1.50 pm – 4.00 pm)
  Introducing the imprest system.
• Module 5 - Management Accounts (Thursday, 12 March 2009 9.45 am – 4.00 pm)
  Reporting on your finances to your management committee.
• Module 6 - Final Accounts (Thursday, 19 March 2009 9.45 am – 4.00 pm)
  The end of year accounts to meet legal requirements.

The training will take place at the London Muslim Centre, 46 Whitechapel Road, London E1 1JX

If you need further information, please call CASH, tel. 020 8969 0747 or email janet@cash-online.org.uk

Basic Domestic Violence (1 Day)
24th February 2009

The session is aimed at developing a basic understanding and knowledge of domestic violence. The session will cover:

• What is Domestic Violence
• Why do women stay
• Impact of domestic violence on victims
• Myths and stereotypes
• Statistics
• Providing basic support

Advanced Domestic Violence (1 Day)
30th March 2009

The session is aimed at developing a more advanced knowledge of domestic violence. It is recommended that participants have a basic understanding of domestic violence before attending this course. The session will cover:

• An overview of basic domestic violence
• Domestic Violence and Children (incorporating the Domestic Violence guidelines)
• Crime and Disorder Act
• Non-Molestation and Occupancy Orders
• Risk assessments
• Supporting women with multiple needs

For more information and to book a place please contact info@ashiana.org.uk or on 020 8539 0427

Migrants Resource Centre - 24 Churton Street, London SW1V 2LP

The Migrants Resource Centre is offering new ESOL for health sessions consisting of 2 parts:

1) Health related vocabulary and exercises aimed to:
• enable the students to describe the symptoms of the most common illnesses
• provide them with phrases to use while dealing with the staff at the surgery

2) Basic description of the NHS system with particular focus on Primary Care Services and explanations of the most common jargon.

As part of their exercises the students will have to fill in a real GP surgery registration form. Role plays, conversations and other interactive learning tools will be used to help our users become more confident while accessing health services.

For more information about the classes please contact Ambra Caruso or Catheryn Cheetham at 020 7834 2505.

Hackney Refugee & Migrant Support Group are concerned at the current round of attacks, and considering organising a public meeting to help develop a campaign (or campaigns)across East London to increase our strength in this struggle. There are a number of concerns included in various white papers, draft bills and pronouncements from the government. Among those which particularly concern are:

• The removal of the right of refugees to access Higher Courts, rather than just a different level of Tribunal, included in the small print in the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill. As pointed out by Legal Action 24% of asylum applicants get status at appeal, (compared to 28% at original decision) despite continuing restrictions and added hurdles.
• Further restrictions on the rights of Commonwealth citizens, and hurdles (the government's favourite image) in the way of becoming a British citizen.
• The merging of deportation and removal, excluding people who would previously been able to try again to enter and get status.
• The new powers for immigration officers in the streets, as well as increasing "partnerships" between them, police and other authorities.
• The refusal to consider any form of regularisation of existing immigrants or of any limitation to detention, even for children.

Would you or your organisation be interested in working with us to hold a public meeting against these attacks (possibly in late February), to help build a campaign for rights for migrants and for all, and to help collate information on the effects of these attacks, including examples of people who have successfully gained status but would fail to do so under planned rules.

For more information please contact us on hrmsgroup@googlemail.com

Deadline 15 April 2009

Organisations working with disadvantaged young people aged 18 or under are able to apply for funding through the BBC's Children inNeed Programme. Funding is available to organisations, (including schools) that work with young people who are suffering from: illness, distress, abuse or neglect, are disabled, have behavioural or psychological difficulties, and/or are living in poverty or situations of deprivation.

The type of funding available includes: Capital, Revenue grants.

There is no minimum or maximum amount when applying for funds from BBC Children in Need and organisations can apply for up to 100% of project costs.

Organisations wishing to apply for funding need to complete the BBC Children in Need online grant application form no paper applications will be accepted (click here)

The Henry Smith Charity makes grants totalling over £20 million per annum for a wide range of purposes across the UK, funded from investments. The charity covers areas such as hospitals and medical care (services operated by the NHS will not normally be funded); hospices and palliative care medical research; disability; elderly; young people; drugs and alcohol; family services; homeless; and holidays for children.

The Charity has three funding streams:

• The main grants programme which offers grants for more than one year, and up to three years. Grant applications must be for £10,000 or more per annum, and can be used towards core costs.
• The capital grant programme which offers grants of more than £10,000 for one year only for purchase/refurbishment of a building, purchase of specialist equipment, other similar capital expenditure, or one year's running costs.
• The small grants programme which offers grants of £10,000 or less to organisations with an annual income of less than £150,000, for one-off capital items such as equipment purchase, or one year's running costs.

There are no specific deadlines, although Trustees meet quarterly in March, June, September and December to consider applications, so these must be received at least 8 weeks prior to a meeting.

For more information click here

The next grant-making meeting will be in early March 2009.

The Yapp Charitable Trust is an independent grant making trust that aims to make grants totalling £300,000 to about 50 small charities each year. Grants of up to £3,000 per year for up to three years are available to:

• Sustain the work of charities that work with elderly people;
• Children and young people aged 5 - 25;
• People with disabilities or mental health problems;
• People trying to overcome life-limiting problems of a social, rather than medical origin such as addiction, relationship difficulties, abuse, and a history of offending;
• Grants are also available to promote lifelong learning.

Applications are processed continuously. To be eligible charities need to have a total expenditure budget of less than £60,000 a year for the whole charity. The time it takes to process an application and make a grant is usually between two months and sixmonths.

For more information click here

Salary:£32,885
Location:Southwark
Closing Date:16 February 2009

We are looking for someone with a passion for active citizenship to be part of our senior management team and lead our Active Citizens Hub and the Take Part programme. You will have experience of community engagement and development and an ability to manage a team and develop a cutting edge programme of advice, training and support to engage and enable people to become more active in Southwark.

Download an application pack here or contact Karen on 0207 403 2936 Karen@volunteercentres.org.uk