Friday 14 August 2015

Our New Projects

It’s been a while since we’ve blogged, so there are a couple of things to catch up on.

Firstly, our Lottery funded bereavement project is now underway.  We have recruited Jo Reeve to run the three year project.  Jo is currently busy planning the recording and monitoring processes. The Big Lottery Fund people are very stringent on how we report progress of the work and those taking part in it, so it is vital that this is planned meticulously. If we don’t give them the right information in our bi-annual reports, they will stop paying us! But Jo has also found time to make contact with people who are interested in being part of the project, and has already proved that she has a wonderful capacity to listen and guide.  Keep watching Facebook and Twitter for news of events.  We will be talking to people directly about the direction that the project will take at our conference in November – ahead of a major launch early in 2016.



For some time now, we have wanted to do something to raise awareness of the issue of asbestos in schools.  Our Asbestos in the Home project was so well received, we wondered if we could use this as a template for a school building project. Joanne researched the possibilities and found that we could do something similar.  This interactive tour would take you through two different types of school building – the system built school of the mid 20th century; and the Victorian school with 20th century alterations.  The tour could be saved onto usb stick and sent out to headteachers.   Sarah prepared a written funding proposal, and sent this out to the trade unions that represent people who work in schools. She also approached some other funders. We are still waiting for some responses, and we will also experiment with CrowdFunding later in the year.  However we can now report that thanks to support from three trade unions, there is enough in the pot to start work on producing the computer programmes and accompanying leaflets. The major supporter so far is Unite East Midlands – they have now made this project happen with their contribution of over £5,000.  The teaching union ATL and UCATT have also donated. When the computer programme is ready, we will be buying in a load of usb sticks so that anyone will be able to have a look – but we really hope that we can get this used in every staff room in the East Midlands. As usual, we will update you when we have news.