Community Fund projects 2013/14

Thirsk Country Watch

Grant Awarded: £1,800.00

This project was set up to assist and support Thirsk Safer Neighbourhood Team North Yorkshire Police anti-poaching, anti-social behaviour and rural crime initiatives. Funding was requested for night vision equipment and anti-deer poaching patrols. It is hoped that this project will encourage members of the farming community to be more active in reporting suspicious behaviour.

Skate Aid                                           

Grant Awarded: £5,000.00

Run by the Norton Skate Park User Group, this is a skate park situated on the edge of Norton on the border with Malton and aims to bring young people from the two towns together. During the spring and summer months there can be sometimes be 50+ users of the park, some of whom might potentially be causing problems at other locations within the community should this facility not exist. Press release: £5,000 grant from PCC ramps up Norton Skate Park www.nortononderwent.co.uk

Bankhead Flats Community-Led Regeneration Project

Grant Awarded: £3,863.00

The Community Involvement Team at Broadacres Housing Association were looking to facilitate the multi-agency regeneration project of Bankhead Flats in Northallerton. Working in collaboration with the Youth Justice Service, Northdale Horticulture and residents of Bankhead Flats, the aim was to provide a residential environment that is clean, safe, uplifting and detached from anti-social behaviour.  Other spin-offs from the project to include re-skilling volunteers, with the possibility of leading to increased employability for those taking part.

• www.broadacres.org.uk
• www.facebook.com/broadacres
• www.twitter.com/broadacresHA

Street Garden

Grant Awarded: £9,000.00

Requested by Seachange, a Scarborough based support and development organisation that provides support to the community and local voluntary groups. Seachange own and manage The Street, a purpose built youth and community facility in the heart of Scarborough which houses North Yorkshire County Council youth support services and provides positive activities for young people. Funding was sought to develop facilities at the rear of the building in order to provide suitable dispersal space for young people when not inside. www.seachange-community.org

Swainby Playing Field Redevelopment

Grant Awarded: £4,000.00

This project was set up to provide the construction of a 50m long “U”- shaped B.M.X track, professionally designed in accordance with national standards. Sited on the eastern side of the playing field which is fenced and located back from neighbouring roads, this was designed to be the first phase of the re-design of the playing fields. This particular element was designed to benefit the young people of the village. www.swainby.org.uk

Soldier On Project Combating Isolation

Grant Awarded: £10,000.00

The Soldier On Project was set up to provide support to veterans by helping them access training support into employment as well as offering advice on housing, health and financial issues. The aim of the project was to raise awareness of veterans in the justice system in order to address issues that may lead to a reduction in crime. Group and individual support sessions were used to deliver the programme for those involved. www.soldieron.org.uk

Community Angels (Scarborough)

Grant Awarded: £13, 025.00

With the assistance of North Yorkshire Police and Scarborough Borough Council, Community Angels aim is to help local residents to decrease their tolerance of crime and disorder, enable vulnerable people and children to feel safer, as well as build better community cohesion. All of which aims to reduce offending. The funding enabled Community Angels to continue with its programme of support, as well as engage a Coordinator resident and equip at least 9 fully trained volunteers. www.scarborough.gov.uk

Keeping Westfield Safe

Grant Awarded: £9,300.00

This is a community support group for families with children under 5 years in the most deprived area of York. The aim of this project was to reduce accident rates through prevention and awareness. Also, to raise awareness of healthy relationships and decrease domestic violence rates within this area.

Ripon Walled Garden and Youth Café

Grant Awarded: £15,092.00

Ripon Community Link has for 22 years developed services which support people with learning difficulties, offenders and people with mental and physical health issues. By providing a range of activities such as life skills training, educational achievement, advocacy and emotional wellbeing the group is able to support its users. The Ripon Community Café Project’s aim was to develop a training programme that improves the life and employability prospects of people with learning difficulties and offenders across Ripon, Harrogate and its surrounding villages. www.riponcommunitylink.org.uk

Health & Wellbeing

Grant Awarded: £1,000.00

The Wreyfield Girls’ Group is a non-profit social support group for girls aged 10-15 based at Wreyfield Drive Church on the Barrowcliffe Estate in Scarborough. The group has been running for 27 years and is a much valued part of the community that relies on fundraising and donations from the church to cover its costs. The aim was to use the funding to encourage the girls to take part in a variety of sport and healthy living activities which, due to financial constraints, they may not be exposed to at home. www.ctiscarborough.org.uk    (Churches together in Scarborough website – Wreyfield Drive link)

National Citizen Service

Grant Awarded: £500.00

The Quality of Life Committee was set up in 2013 to look at raising the quality of life for residents of the Westfield Ward in York. This particular project, the National Citizens Service takes place over several weeks, out of school time, during school holidays and on selected weekends. The aim; to bring together teams of 15 young people from different backgrounds to tackle outdoor challenges on a residential week away from home, work with local businesses and social leaders to learn new skills. The funding requested was for 10 young people on the Westfield Ward, York.

• www.northyorkshire.police.uk/lifestyle

Ripon Bike Park

Grant Awarded: £5,240.00

The Ripon Bike Park Project InLine with Skateboards & Scooters is a constituted not-for-profit community project set up by a group of young people and parents from Ripon. Consisting entirely of volunteers, it was formed following widespread consultation with local young people, residents and community members. Supported by Harrogate Borough Council, the aim was to restore an existing skate park where structures have either been removed or are in a state of disrepair. The Ripon Bike Project proposed a new skate park to be built on the same land allocated for the existing facility, adjacent to Ripon Leisure centre. The funding went towards Capital Build costs, including foundations for elements, installation and surfacing. www.riponbikepark.com

Fairfax Drop-in

Grant Awarded: £3,066.00

The Fairfax Management Committee aims to promote the Community Centre as a focal point for the community, providing information, activities and a means to community development. This project aimed to encourage the young people of the Fairfax Community to access the facilities at the community centre and reduce the number of gangs hanging around outside and surrounding streets. The grant enabled the centre to fund a range of leisure activities. www.harrogate.gov.uk

SASH Active

Grant Awarded: £5,000.00

This is a project by Safe and Sound Homes (SASH) to provide a programme of outdoor activities tailored to the young people of SASH’s Supported Lodging Scheme in York. These are young people who have experienced homelessness or are care leavers. The aim was to improve the young people’s physical and mental health, self-confidence and self-esteem in order to improve their life prospects, particularly their ability to access and retain meaningful employment. www.sash-uk.org.uk

North Yorkshire Police Rock Challenge 2014

Grant Awarded: £10,000.00

Launched by the Community Safety Team, North Yorkshire Police, this event is a performing arts initiative delivering a positive lifestyle message to young people aged between 11 and 18 in schools and colleges across the county. Rock Challenge offers young people the opportunity to put together an eight minute dance and drama piece based around a theme of their choice and set to contemporary commercially available music. The funding helped the project with an event at York Barbican and covered the many costs of putting on an event, such as venue hire, lighting, insurances and so on. www.northyorkshire.police.uk

Read the press release: Talented youngsters prove you can get a buzz without drink and drugs

Read the press release: North Yorkshire schools rock it out at the Barbican

YUSU ‘Call It In Campaign’

Grant Awarded: £2,000.00

This was a campaign by York University Students Union (YUSU), a member led organisation providing student activities such as sports and special interest societies and volunteer groups, as well as representing and promoting the welfare of its members. The funding was aimed at focusing on crime prevention, especially to encourage positive relationships between police and security officials and the student population. Expenditure included; printing of campaign branded posters, distribution of safety cards, other general printing and catering supplies. www.yusu.org

Your Voice: A Country-Wide Minority Community Mentors and Confidence Project

Grant Awarded: £19,966.00

Funding was requested by York Racial Equality Network (YREN), a charity which works towards the elimination of racial discrimination, victimisation and racial harassment (hate crime), and promotes equality of opportunity for all. The ‘Your Voice’ project requested funding to recruit between 15 and 25 mentors, members of the public drawn from diverse minority communities in order to ensure that representation is authentic. To ensure that recruits are appropriately screened and ensuring that adequate training is provided in the understanding and reporting of hate crime. www.yren.co.uk

Capacity Building Project

Grant Awarded: £12,890.00

Run by Mud In Your Blood Ltd (MIYB), a “not for profit” youth and community-led off road motorcycle club, formed in 2010 in response to a lack of safe and legal spaces to ride off road in Scarborough. The capacity Building Project aimed to acquire much needed training and equipment that would enable the club to offer an enhanced service, including increasing capacity and opening times.

Providing access to counselling for victims of violence with limited access to financial resources

Grant Awarded: £12,000.00

Run by Aegis Counselling Service CIC, a not for profit community interest company formed to provide specialist counselling for men, women, children and young people within North Yorkshire who have been psychologically harmed through direct or indirect exposure to sexual abuse, domestic violence or a combination of the two. This project has been designed to enable the service to continue to develop its counselling services in the area, including the provision of outreach services, room hire costs and travel expenses for counsellors. www.aegiscounsellingservice.org

Skipton Rugby Football Club

Grant Awarded: £4,779.76

Run by Skipton Rugby Club, this project focused on two projects. Firstly, the Street Rugby project to work with a number of community organisations to deliver rugby sessions in 4 targeted areas that have been identified by Skipton Police as having high levels of ant-social behaviour, or at risk of such behaviour. The second; a programme specifically aimed at engaging with NEET’s, the community of Greatwood and Horseclose which now falls into the top 20% of the most deprived areas of the country. For both, the funding assisted in the provision of a range of equipment and coaching costs. www.pitchero.com/clubs/skiptonrugbyfootballclub

Judo Solutions

Grant Awarded: £12,480.00

Judo solutions was set up to support local crime strategies for young offenders and attempt to turn them away from criminal behaviour and into better citizens. The funding will enable the project, based in the Scarborough area, to identify young people at a high risk of re-offending and involved in the criminal justice system. Also, to enable young people identified by schools or other agencies to benefit from having access to judo as an extra-curricular activity.

Read the press release: Commissioner visits Scarborough’s Community Fund project, Judo Solutions

www.blackbeltmind.co.uk

Hand in Hand Project – Skipton & Craven

Grant Awarded: £20,000.00

The Hand in Hand Project – Skipton & Craven will work with and support young people affected by child sexual exploitation across Skipton and Craven. The aim of the funding was to provide a part-time worker to offer a comprehensive preventative programme of awareness raising for primary and secondary school age children across Skipton and Craven who might be deemed vulnerable to child sexual exploitation. www.childrenssociety.org.uk/hand-in-hand

Building Blocks

Grant Awarded: £20,000.00

This application for funding has been developed under the auspices of the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Joint Advisory Committee. Comprising of representatives of the local authority, parish councils, community groups, businesses, farming, landowner organisations and government agencies, the committee’s purpose is to co-ordinate the actions of key partners to ensure that the quality and integrity of this important landscape is protected. In 2010 Nidderdale AONB was approached by the Probation Trust, seeking new opportunities for offenders carrying out their sentence through the Community Payback Scheme. As an organisation AONB were able to offer the Probation Trust all of the necessary skills and were keen to engage new audiences that were felt excluded from its work. The project aimed to deliver training led by a dry stone walling instructor, with the intention that 75% of participants will achieve Craven College Beginners Dry Stone Walling Qualification. www.nidderdaleaonb.org.uk

Read the press release: Commissioner visits Community Funded Building Blocks scheme

K9 Patrol in partnership with the Licensees of Harrogate Town Centre via Pub Match

Grant Awarded: £1,920.00

The partnerships aim is to use a drug detection dog on the streets of Harrogate Town Centre on a Saturday night either once a quarter or more frequently. The funds will cover the costs incurred by K9 patrol to deploy the drug detection team including a dog on a quarterly basis. www.k9patrol.co.uk

Build a Bike – A grand Departure from North Yorkshire

Grant Awarded: £500.00

This application was requested by North Yorkshire Youth. Founded in 1941, their mission is to provide learning and personal development opportunities for children and young people. The Build a Bike project was to build (and decorate) 1 serviceable bicycle from spare parts and from bicycles which had been stolen and not claimed. This project provided a rare opportunity to bring clubs together from across the whole county to celebrate the Tour De France and provide approximately 80 young people with a range of positive activities designed to increase responsible and safer cycling. www.nyy.org.uk

Read the press release: Commissioner visits Community Fund project, Build a Bike, in Thirsk

Lifestyle Challenge 2014

Grant Awarded: £10,000.00

Lifestyle Challenge is a competition that invites young people between the ages of 10 – 16 and resident in the county to join up with friends and carry out a community based project over the Summer holidays. Lifestyle is promoted to secondary schools and year 6 of primary throughout North Yorkshire. Additionally, a targeted approach is made to all qualifying youngsters within Pupil Support Centres, Pupil Referral Units, Youth Offending Teams and those engaging with Youth Support Services. www.northyorkshire.police.uk/lifestyle

ARCH Mediation Services & My Possible Self Partnership

Grant Awarded: £12,936.00

The application by ARCH Mediation Services was to provide mediation, conciliation, counselling, mentoring and other conflict resolution services in the Harrogate district in North Yorkshire. ARCH Mediation and My Possible Self had decided to form a strategic partnership to provide a new one stop shop approach in order to address and resolve a range of issues by the appropriate use of mediation and therapeutic techniques. www.archmediation.co.uk    – under construction www.harrogate.gov.uk My Possible Self – www.mypossibleself.com

Keeping York a Safe place for disabled people

Grant Awarded: £9,358.20

This was an application by York Independent Living Network which is a network of disabled people living and working in York, set up to empower disabled people and push for their voice to be heard. The aim of this funding was to highlight disabled people’s experiences of crime in York and develop effective responses so that York is a safe place for disabled people and their families. www.yiln.org.uk