Disability History Month: Our work with Headway East London
Written by Orlaith McGuinness, Community Development Project Manager – Evolve
The theme for this year’s Disability History Month is Disability, Health and Wellbeing. With that in mind, we wanted to profile the work we are doing with an organisation doing fantastic work in this area: Headway East London is a local charity supporting people affected by brain injury. They offer specialist support and services for survivors and their family, including therapies, advocacy, family support and community support. From their community venue on Kingsland Road, they run a day service where people can make the most of their abilities and interests. They also promote awareness and understanding of brain injury by providing information to the public, a fantastic array of events, and offering training to university students, professionals, and businesses.
This year, ELBA are delighted to be able to support this fantastic organisation via Evolve: a collaborative partnership between Linklaters, Societe Generale, Societe Generale UK Foundation and UBS. Evolve aims to build the capacity of community organisations in Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Haringey through a series of skilled-volunteering activities.
Orlaith (Evolve Project Manager) caught up with Headway East London CEO, Anna McEwen, to get feedback on Headway’s experience since becoming an ELBA community partner earlier this year:
Leaders in Partnership Programme:
Leaders in Partnership (LiP) is a community coaching programme designed to strengthen the leadership of the third sector via 1-1 coaching partnerships. Four members of the management team at Headway East London were matched with business mentors from UBS as part of Evolve’s LiP programme:
“Managers matched with mentors have reported the positive impact of the partnerships on themselves personally and their work. They enjoy the dedicated time to spend talking and reflecting, and have appreciated the external lens, questions and suggestions that mentors have offered. Managers have increased in confidence as a result of these sessions, using them to talk through difficult situations, discuss strategy and planning, and they’ve valued the advice and thoughtfulness they’ve received from their mentors. One of the managers matched has recently been successful in an internal promotion and is now a member of our senior management team.”
Practical Training Sessions: Headway staff have attended several training sessions hosted by Evolve volunteers, on topics such as project management, people management and communications:
“[Staff] have described these sessions as well planned with exercises that were relevant and beneficial with useful take-aways to put into practice in their work.”
Facilitated Development Day: Headway sought support creating a behaviour framework for staff. Through ELBA’s network of businesses, we connected the organisation with three volunteers who were skilled in this area. The partnership resulted in a five hour development day for a staff team of 40 people:
“Although potentially a difficult task, the day was relaxed and facilitated in a way that encouraged participation and we were able to get a lot out of the staff which can be used as the starting point for the framework. [….] the volunteers were really friendly and approachable, and presented in a way that related to the staff team.”
ELBA is honoured to be joined by Headway East London on its programmes and look forward to continued collaboration in the future.
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Below is a collection of photos from the launch of Art is Freedom, an exhibition by Submit the Love (the art studio within Headway East London). It will be on display in Rich Mix from 2-28 of November, all welcome!
Photo credit to: © Leon Foggitt
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