Award winning author Ali Sparkes, will be presenting her new children’s book ‘Thunderstruck’ along with showing the trailer for the new book on Saturday 17 June.

It is now a year since the launch of Cobbett Hub and Library and to celebrate this important milestone Ali Sparkes will be visiting to share her latest work. Ali grew up in Southampton and attended Bitterne Park School.

Ali said: ‘It’s always lovely to come back to the library where I first found my love of reading – and I’m really excited to be talking about my latest book, Thunderstruck – especially as it was inspired by a true Southampton story. There will, as ever, be cheesy sound effects along with stuff you never knew about lightning and a particularly disturbing section on dolls of the 60s, 70s and 80s…’

Tickets are available from Cobbett Hub and Library – suggested donations of £3 per ticket.

The Friends of Cobbett Road Library will be providing refreshments and talking to people about the changes at Cobbett Hub and Library over the past year.

We’ve had a fantastic #volunteersweek here at SCA Group thanking our volunteers. We have many volunteers working across our group, from those who volunteer in our day centres, to those who help our transport team get people safely from their homes out into their communities.

On Monday 4 June, Ruth Marriott, CEO of SCA Group paid a visit to the volunteers at Cobbett Hub and Library, in Bitterne Park, Southampton.

It’s just over a year since SCA Group, Unexpected Places and the Friends of Cobbett Road Library got together to take on the running of Cobbett Road Library to save it from closure.

It’s been a great year for the library, which is now a community hub with many new activities taking place in the meeting rooms. The number of local people who have volunteered to help with the running of the library has been fantastic and we are very grateful to all of them.

We asked our volunteers to share what they’ve enjoyed most about being a volunteer at the library and what it has done for them!

Clare Petrelli (above) has been voluteering at Cobbett Hub and Library for almost a year. Clare has been involved with the running of the toddler group that meets at Cobbett for longer and decided to volunteer with the library side of things when SCA took over the running of the library.

Clare says that what she loves most about volunteering at the library is the sense of accomplishment ‘This is the total opposite to parenting, here I can help people and get the job done, I can tick something off the list.

‘Before I volunteered at Cobbett I knew nothing about the running of a library, I had no idea how popular the library was. It’s been great for my people skills and a good chance to talk to other adults. It has totally enriched my life as a parent, there is a saying that a change is as good as a rest and this certainly applies to me.

‘The best thing for me about volunteering at Cobbett is seeing how much the children’s library is used. I love recommending books to people and then seeing them come back the next week and letting me know what they thought of the book.’

If you, or someone you know, is interested in volunteering at the library or in one of our other areas of work then please email hello@sciagroup.co.uk

Southampton Healthy Living launched to support Southampton residents to live longer lives in good health

Monday 3 April 2017 marked the launch of Southampton Healthy Living, a new and innovative partnership of health, voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations.

Southampton Healthy Living offer a single service which enables individuals, families and communities to develop more control over their lifestyle by helping create communities where healthy behaviour is the norm.

The NHS in England spends more than £11bn a year on treating illnesses caused by the effects of diet, inactivity, smoking and drinking alcohol. In Southampton 62% of residents are either overweight or obese, 21% smoke and tens of thousands of people are drinking alcohol at a level which puts their health at risk.

Southampton Healthy Living will be actively working with communities to help people live longer, fuller lives and to reduce health inequalities between communities in the city.

They have several ways in which they can support residents who can access the service through the Southampton Healthy Living hub so that they can choose the most appropriate to them:

• The digital hub at southamptonhealthyliving.org.uk which offers a self-help guide, information on where to find us and details of how to talk to us
• Groups will be run across the city to help people making similar changes come together to talk about their experiences and to offer our support should they need it
• Expert advisors are available to talk to people on the telephone, just call 0300 123 3791 or by email via the digital hub

Southampton Healthy Living will be working across the city, in locations that are accessible to local people, to offer support with making small lifestyle changes that can have a big impact on health.

This will include working closely with GPs, local pharmacies and others to ensure people are referred through to the service and are supported to make a positive change to their lifestyle.

They won’t judge how people live their lives but support people to make changes and celebrate successes in their journey to a healthier life. It isn’t always easy to make changes but we hope to offer people the right support, in the right way at the right time.

About the Southampton Healthy Living Members

Southampton Healthy Living is led by Social Care in Action (SCA) group, an established provider of health and social care delivery in Southampton. A charitable social enterprise, reinvesting all profit back into the organisation and the wider community.

SCA Group is joined by: Southampton Voluntary Services (SVS) the umbrella body for local voluntary and community groups in Southampton and Solent NHS Trust who are the main provider of community health services in the city including Southampton’s health trainers, health promotion and stop smoking services.

Southampton Healthy Living has been established to provide a team of experts coming together to support the residents of Southampton to live a long and healthy life.

Southampton Healthy Living has the full support of Southampton City Council. Councillor Dave Shields, Cabinet Member for Health and Sustainable Living, said:

“We face many challenges in the city in the battle against long term conditions like diabetes, respiratory illness and heart disease. It’s really important that prevention becomes everyone’s business and is not seen as the sole responsibility of any one particular agency. We all have an important part to play as active citizens, good neighbours, caring parents or responsible employers and I want to make sure that the city council, the local NHS and the city’s voluntary sector continue to work together with wider civic society to promote a healthy city.”

As lead partner for Southampton Healthy Living, Ruth Marriott, CEO for Social Care in Action (SCA) Group said:

“SCA are extremely excited about this new partnership to develop Southampton Healthy Living.

“Working with both health specialists and local voluntary, community and social enterprises will enable us to ensure that skills are shared with people in their communities.

“It will ensure a group of local people will have skills that they can share and support people on the ground in a way that helps individuals, families and communities feel that they can improve their health, have fun, and make lasting improvements that will benefit them for years to come.”

Jo Ash, Chief Executive of Southampton Voluntary Services said:

“As a partner in Southampton Healthy Living we are delighted to be delivering community development work and a small grants programme.

“We will be working with local grassroots voluntary organisations to actively engage with individuals and volunteers in the communities of Southampton, and support them to help healthy lifestyles become the norm.”

Lesley Munro, Solent NHS Trust’s Chief Operating Officer, said:

“As our health and social care needs evolve, it is important that as service providers we keep up with the changes. Putting in place services that empower people to take even more control and ownership of their health and social needs is the way forward. We are, therefore, delighted to partner SCA and SVS to deliver this behaviour change service across Southampton.

This partnership will provide innovative models of behaviour change. This is an exciting opportunity to strengthen our relationship with our local community in conjunction with the voluntary sector and make a huge difference to the people of Southampton.”

After the launch of Southampton Healthy Living on 3 April we will be attending the ABP Marathon and 10K event on 23 April 2017in Southampton. We will be acting as mile makers and have a stand in the race village for Southampton residents to find out more about the new Southampton Healthy Living team and ways we can support people to make changes to live healthier lives.

Local Social Enterprise to lead new approach to improve the health of Southampton residents.

A group of local organisations has won a bid to deliver health improvement and behaviour change services across the city of Southampton. The group will be led by Social Care in Action (SCA) Group working in partnership with Solent NHS Trust and Southampton Voluntary Services (SVS).

By working together across the city we hope to improve the health and wellbeing of people who live and work in Southampton in a number of ways. The new approach will make it easier for people to find out about ways to make changes to their lives to stay as fit and healthy for as long as possible. We also will be making it easier for people to get support with improving their health – taking part in regular exercise or stopping smoking are just a couple of examples.

SCA Group, Solent NHS Trust and SVS have worked together to develop an innovative approach to delivering the service. This new delivery model led to the consortia becoming finalists in the Third Sector Care Awards 2016 held in early December for Contribution to Sector Development.

Ruth Marriott, CEO for SCA Group said:

‘We are delighted to have been awarded the contract for delivering this service. We have been delivering care and wellbeing services to the people of Southampton for over 25 years and our expertise and local knowledge puts us in a great place to lead this work.

Improving the health and wellbeing of our communities is one of our main priorities, and as we are a not-for-profit organisation the public can be assured that we will be investing every penny possible into helping them improve lives.’

Councillor Dave Shields, Cabinet Member for Health at Southampton City Council, said:

 ‘We face many challenges in the city in the battle against long term conditions like diabetes, respiratory illness and heart disease. It’s really important that prevention becomes everyone’s business and not seen as the sole responsibility of any one particular agency; we all have an important part to play as active citizens, good neighbours, caring parents or responsible employers and I want to make sure that the city council, the local NHS and the city’s voluntary sector continue to work together to promote a healthy city.”

Alex Whitfield, Solent NHS Trust’s Chief Operating Officer, said:

 ‘We are thrilled to be part of the winning partnership bid to deliver behaviour change services across Southampton. Our partnership with SCA and SVS will provide innovative models of behaviour change across the city and will integrate our current behaviour change and health promotion offer. This is an exciting opportunity to strengthen our relationship with our local community in conjunction with the voluntary sector and make a huge difference to the people of Southampton.’

Jo Ash, CEO of SVS said:

 ‘As a partner in this exciting new service model SVS is delighted to be delivering community development work and a small grants programme for local grassroots voluntary organisations which will support local people through a holistic approach to behaviour change rooted in community participation and active engagement of individual and volunteers.’

The new service will start at the beginning of April 2017. We firmly belive that by providing health promotion and wellbeing services of the highest quality to individuals across Southampton we can also have an impact on the health and wellbeing of whole communities.

Children invited to join The Big Friendly Read at Cobbett Hub and Library

Cobbett Hub and Library is calling for children to sign up to read six books this summer as part of The Big Friendly Read, Summer Reading Challenge 2016.

The Summer Reading Challenge asks 4-11 year olds to borrow and read any six library books over the summer. It has a new theme each year and in 2016 the Challenge is delivered in collaboration with The Roald Dahl Literary Estate to celebrate 100 years of the world’s favourite storyteller.

The Big Friendly Read, Summer Reading Challenge 2016 will feature some of Roald Dahl’s best-loved characters and the amazing artwork of his principal illustrator, Sir Quentin Blake. It will encourage reading on a giant scale.

To take part in the Challenge, all children need to do is sign up with us at Cobbett Hub and Library. They’ll receive a special collector’s folder and as they borrow and read at least six library books over the summer, they can collect six special cards to complete it. The cards all feature original Quentin Blake illustrations and explore some of most popular themes in Roald Dahl’s books such as invention, mischief and friendship.

The Big Friendly Read Summer Reading Challenge launches at Cobbett Hub and Library on Saturday 16 July and runs until Friday 16 September.

There’s a whole programme of events and activities planned at Cobbett Hub and Library for families over the summer to celebrate the Summer Reading Challenge. Just go to www.cobbetthub.co.uk to find out how to take part.

Sue Wilkinson, CEO, The Reading Agency, said: “The Summer Reading Challenge is developed and delivered in partnership with librarians across the country. At The Reading Agency, we believe that everything changes when we read and we know from our research how much fun families and children have when taking part in the Challenge. This year we hope Roald Dahl’s fantastic characters, and Sir Quentin Blake’s brilliant artwork, will inspire many more children to take part and make use of their local library throughout the summer and beyond.”

Luke Kelly, MD of The Roald Dahl Literary Estate and Roald Dahl’s grandson, said: “Roald Dahl was passionate about making children into enthusiastic readers for life and that’s exactly what the Summer Reading Challenge does. We are delighted to be joining forces with this year’s reading event which, based on past performance, will engage almost a million children. In the Roald Dahl 100 year, to have The Big Friendly Read happening in libraries throughout the UK is quite literally a dream come true. My grandfather would have been so proud and so supportive of this event.”

Ruth Marriott, CEO SCA Group, said: “We are delighted that our first major event as custodians of Cobbett Hub and Library is to support the Big Friendly Read, Summer Reading Challenge 2016. We look forward to welcoming the younger members of our community and their families to the library. We hope to make them feel that the library is a place that will provide them with great books to read as well as a venue for exciting activities.”

Families can also unlock some digital magic when they download the free Summer Reading Challenge App, which this year will include rare recordings of Roald Dahl sharing his writing tips and reading aloud, all triggered by augmented reality as children collect the cards. Created by Reading Agency sponsor SOLUS, the app will also provide a convenient way to access the Book Sorter, a unique crowd-sourced database of books in user friendly categories that children themselves have rated and added.

The official Big Friendly Read, Summer Reading Challenge 2016 website can be found by clicking here.

The app will be available to be downloaded in July from www.summerreadingchallenge.org.uk/games

SCA Group, along with Unexpected Places (UP) has now officially been running Cobbett Hub and Library for a week and what a week it’s been!

Many staff from SCA Group and Rosanna from UP along with several volunteers received training from Southampton City Council library staff in the final two weeks of May.

Then came our launch day on Wednesday 1 June, the day was a real success, involving some drama booked by Rosanna, a chance to meet the SCA team and understand our vision for the library, along with how we hope to create a real community hub.

Monday 6 June was a bright, sunny day, perfect for our first full day as new custodians of the library. As we opened the doors we didn’t really have any idea of how many people to expect, although the bookshelf containing books awaiting collection was packed.

All week we’ve had a steady stream of people through the doors, for many different reasons. Most of the reserved books have been collected and the book group have been steadily coming in to collect their next book to read. We’ve had lots of books returned and have got to grips with the system for sharing books around the Southampton Library network.

We’ve met several of the groups that regularly use the library space, from the toddler group to the home education group. SCA’s Advocacy Manager, Alison Noel, even stepped in to lead the singing for the library rhyme time!

Thank you to all the members of the Friends of Cobbett Road Library who have come to the hub and library to share their support for us in keeping the Cobbett Hub and Library a vibrant community library and space for the future.

We also need to give special thanks to Bob, Yan and Carolyn from Southampton Library Service who have been with us for the past three weeks, doing our training and helping us with the varied enquiries from members of the public – along with how to use the computer system and tips for hunting down hard to find books.

Fiona Price
SCA Group

Become a volunteer at Cobbett Road Library!

Would you like to gain new skills, meet new people and contribute to your local community?

We have a range of volunteering roles available starting from a couple of hours a week. We offer full training and support.

For more information please contact SCA Group on 023 8051 6015 or via email hello@sciagroup.co.uk

Cobbett Road Library has been saved from closure by SCA Group and Unexpected Places, two local not-for-profit organisations.