Norwood is celebrating being awarded a Big Lottery Fund grant of £132,438 to be spread over three years. This is the first time the charity has won an award of this kind and the money will be put to good use to fund the expansion of the Young People’s Focus Group, made up of Norwood's young service users with learning disabilities. This group currently represents the voice of their peers and provides feedback on their views in order to shape the way that Norwood's services are run.
The extra funding, which begins in 2007, will be used to involve more services users in the focus group, and pay for a new participation worker and sessional workers as required. The young people’s views will be considered in planning Norwood's policy, service development, delivery and evaluation. The group will engage with Directors to ensure that their voices are heard and help them to improve services with their views in mind. The young people will also receive interview training to enable them to sit on interview panels and become more involved in staff recruitment for their specific services. As well as managing and implementing their chosen activities, the grant will enable the Young People's Focus Group and their peers to run the programmes and put together effective methods of communication and evaluation.
Lauren is 17 years old and represents the service users from Unity East on the Young People’s Focus Group. She said, "I am really, really, pleased and happy that we have got money from the Big Lottery for the Young People's Focus Group. We can now have a new staff member who will help us, we can do more events, have more meetings, do more newsletters, and we can make sure Norwood listens to what we have to say. We want everyone to know all about the Young People's Focus Group".
Norwood Chief Executive, Norma Brier said: ‘The Big Lottery grant will make a real difference to the work Norwood does with our Young People’s Focus Group, ensuring that the voices of young people with learning disabilities are listened to. Having the funds will enable us to expand the work we do with young people who represent the views of their peers and this will help us to shape the strategic direction of the organisation.’
For more information plesase contact: Naomi Creeger, PR Manager on 020 8420 6900 or naomi.creeger@norwood.org.uk
