WHAT WE DO.

WE HELP:

Build and strengthen community
infrastructures

Online

Presence

Share Knowledge

Create a pool of “Expert” volunteers and workers to help local communities and colleges who can share their skills and provide support where possible.

Develop a philanthropy website, and use social media to promote our volunteers, communities, members, outcomes, events and connect direct stakeholders, donors, businesses and encourage corporate social responsibility.

Identify and coordinate opportunities to pool resources, exchange skills, facilitate specialist training and crime prevention education, mentoring, to maximise impacting and support to communities and young people.

Celebrate Success and encourage Cohesion

Encourage

Opportunities

We will celebrate and champion successful outcomes of individual members and their beneficiaries, through events, social media.

Supporting, fundraising and community run events. Celebrate the diversity of our members and their approaches to engaging young people and communities, using sports, drama, arts, music, creative writing, literacy, confidence, and mentoring etc

Advocate for members through networking with communities, voluntary sector, stakeholders, donors, commissioners to encourage cohesions, break down barriers and relationships, utilise opportunities to collaborate, apply for tenders and bids, and share information into the bigger violence reduction and youth/panels and other initiatives in Kent.

Families

We help families of young people, showing clear sign of entering the criminal justice system and/or due to poverty and or Mental Health

Also support families of young people that are already involved in the criminal justice system or at the earliest stages due to poverty.

We help service user led volunteers, with their ideas. employability and work ethics by providing them opportunities through our family projects.

Volunteers

Equality and diversity

80% of our members are from BAME backgrounds. We therefore are committed to promote equality and diversity at the heart of youth and communities engagement. We will promote fair and inclusive opportunities and respect the individuality of every member. Be committed to eliminate discrimination in any form and help break down barriers between communities and local authorities, stakeholder, government and police advisory panels.

CHALLENGES IN KENT.

In Kent -The rate of young people aged 10-14 entering the youth justice system in Kent is significantly higher, than the England and regional value. The rate for 15 -18 years olds into the youth justice system are similar to the national and regional value.

The majority of victims groomed into working for gangs are 15 to 17 year-old boys but children as young as 11 have been safeguarded and girls have been targeted. According to the national crime agency 2019, the rate of knife crime in Kent has risen to over 150% and is still rising.

We believe young people accessing support through fully functional community youth organisations are less likely to go into crime. Youth clubs and charity closures are putting young people at greater risk of exploitation, grooming, the temptation of drugs, violence. Councils have slashed funding on youth services by 70% on average in the last three years. Whilst sadly some organisations have been forced to close due to lack of funding, many others have moved to more innovative models of delivery to ensure their sustainability. This has all increased as a result of Covid-19.

Cuts to youth services and a reduction in giving to charities is just one factor often-overlooked that contributes to the rise in anti social behaviour, knife crime, violence, gang culture and going missing, outside London in counties such as Kent, which has experienced a rise of 152% since 2010.

According to the small charities coalition UK there has been a 45% reduction pre Covid-19 in giving to local charities and 20% increase to large charities in the last two years.

Local charities are established within communities and need help to continue to make a difference at a grass root level

INTRODUCTION

In 2021 Kent Community Foundation commissioned an in-depth needs analysis, by district, to ensure that we are equipped with the evidence to support our grants strategy. This assessment was produced using a range of data sets from sources including Kent County Council, Medway Council, Public Health England, LG Inform, Kent Police, central government including the Department of Education, Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, to build a picture of need across Kent and Medway reflecting the diversity of the area and identifying priorities at a local level. At a time when charities face their biggest struggle to survive, it was important that we identified the areas of greatest need in the county, so that we could direct our 2022 funding to the areas where our support will make a big difference to our communities and help charities to recover.

The report helps ensure we work in an informed way with our fund-holders and strategic partners to target funding to the most needed causes. We appreciate and acknowledge the diversity of the region we live in, where the geography of our coastal, urban and rural areas create different communities and where infrastructure and context such as transport, digital provision and housing also influence need.

These include:

Substance misuse
Mental health
Domestic abuse
Low income/benefits
Food poverty

WHAT IMPACT WE WOULD LIKE TO HAVE.

Address systemic issues through wrap around approached to giving young people opportunities and access to diverse activities, resources, food , hardship support and embed crime prevention mentoring, positive role models, counselling, education and awareness within them services.