Hear Us has been very busy and productive this last year, expanding the workforce with both paid workers and volunteers. We have also been busy making plans for the future. This has involved two development days where staff, volunteers and Trustees came together to review and develop ideas for how we wanted to work in the future. These were a great success and the staff showed such energy and enthusiasm which never ceases to amaze me. We talked about how we could make Hear Us have an even louder voice not only in Croydon but also in expanding to other parts of the London.
The staff, Volunteers & Trustees of Hear Us showed such spirit and a huge commitment to achieve success no matter how hard they have to work. I think we all left excited and exhilarated about the future. Hear Us can be extremely proud of what it has achieved over the year. Here are some of the achievements:
The Linkwork Champions have been developed and a forum has been set up each month to have a greater oversight over the issues that are affecting service users. This has resulted in SLaM making greater changes and improving services and as such proved very successful. This work has been very successfully led by Barbra.
The Welfare Benefits staff, David & Cheryalin, have really stepped up to the challenge of managing an enormous caseload and have successfully closed many cases. David has represented over 35 Tribunals. Cheryalin, has been doing a brilliant job supporting new clients to understand what they can do for themselves so that they can feel more empowered.
Eleanor has worked tirelessly to develop a funding strategy for Hear Us and has engaged the whole organisation in this work and gained valuable support from Croydon Voluntary Association. She has also made some successful funding bids including money for the Open Forum.
Al has been working very hard on the Hear Us website and has developed an online guide to replace the paper version. He has also streamlined the website to make it much more user friendly.
Claire has joined the organisation in the last year and has made huge contributions in many areas including becoming chair of the Open Forum and organised well attended forums with guests that service users have requested.
Reachout Challenge – a hugely successful and unfunded project, Barbra is extremely committed and made a fabulous job of managing this project by recruiting new volunteers and running many events at the police college and new events at the Coop stores.
I would like to thank everyone involved with Hear Us including all the volunteers, Linkworkers as well as Staff and Trustees and all those who support Hear Us in many different ways including our partners, funders and supporters. Without all of you, Hear Us could not be able to achieve so much.
Angela Mitchell
Chair of the Board of Trustees
