Langworthy Cornerstone has been established 22 years and we provide health and wellbeing services for the people in the communities we serve - Ordsall, Langworthy, Pendleton and Charlestown. Funded from various sources, we continually strive to be the best health and wellbeing Centre in Salford, working in partnership with many agencies, organisations to build capacity of the people we serve, to empower real lives and give people the best possible chances in life to succeed. We continue to develop our services to support more people, projects, volunteers and people into the workplace, but we need further resources to capitalise on social value and extend our reach to more people to make them 'more active, more often'.
The diverse communities we support through our services face many challenges and socio-economic issues.
Langworthy is one of the most deprived wards in the city. There is a high proportion of lone parent families, on benefits, and also a high proportion of incapacity benefit claimants. More than 39 per cent of households receive housing or council tax benefits this is compared to a citywide average of 30 per cent. Unemployment rates locally are 9.4 per cent, compared to a four per cent citywide average. It is against this backdrop of socio and economic deprivation that we are seeking to develop a new and innovative approach to volunteering with the aim of providing individual participants and ultimately the wider community with a range of options, experiences and skills that otherwise they would not have access to.
The volunteer programme supports the both the Salford Locality Plan 2020-2025, Living Well Outcomes, and the NHS Five Ways to Wellbeing.
Our volunteering programme will be delivered over a period of 18 weeks, which will be broken into three significant sections and a formative evaluation as follows:
- Open Day – Publicised volunteer recruitment day at LCA
- Induction – a period of 6 weeks where volunteers will undertake essential training and receive one-to-one support from our Volunteer Coordinator.
- Internship – a period of 10 weeks where volunteers will undertake specific roles and tasks including Welcome Host / Hospitality and Café / Food Club Support / Exhibitions Curator
- Pathways – During this period volunteers will work closely with the Volunteer Coordinator to develop a professional CV, identify options for further training, volunteering, or employment.
- Formative Evaluation – This is a pilot project and as such we will complete a thorough evaluation of our processes / delivery / outcomes / impact.