An update from Open Road
Community SOS Bus (pictured below)
Open Road is pleased to update you on a new initiative with the Community SOS Bus. The bus will now be able to be booked during the week in North Essex by partners and health providers to respond to health inequalities. This exciting initiative means that with your support we can ensure that those in rural and marginalised areas can receive vital support in their local neighborhood.
We are keen to ensure that this service can reach as many people as possible and address health inequalities in our communities, so please do email enquiries to Stacey.banner@openraod.or.guk. Please feel free to share news of this fantastic initiative within your local communities.
Training:
SETDAB offer a lot of free e-learning on their bulletin that you can sign up to on News - Southend and Thurrock Domestic Abuse Partnership (setdab.org)
Clacton on Sea
Our next project at Clacton on Sea Open Road is the transformation of our Courtyard Garden. This is an amazing space, and we are teaming up with local community businesses for donations. The local ASDA store will be donating garden and art supplies, the latter being used for art activities in and outside of the garden. This project adds to the growing range of activities on offer at Clacton to support people in recovery.
We have also had the drop in area redecorated with new furniture and boiler for tea and coffee. The engagement workers have lots of ideas for developing the drop in so keep your eyes peeled!
Peabody are offering a weekly drop in session in Clacton for housing support and women’s yoga on Thursday afternoons.
Southend
We are excited to further expand Open Road’s employment service in Southend, with the addition of an Employment Specialist that will be working with people that have a background of convictions, substance misuse, homelessness and other barriers to employment. The new team member will start in July. If you have any questions about eligibility for this service, please contact julie.ellis@openroad.org.uk
Harlow
We are excited to announce that our new premises in Harlow will be ready at the end of June. This sees the current team moving from the Derwent Centre to The Harvey Centre in the heart of the town’s shopping district. Not only are the new premises a much bigger space that will allow us to offer more to the people we support, but the location should also help break down the stigma of addiction. We would love for you to join us on our opening day, for more details please contact andrew.potts@openroad.org.uk
Colchester
Our Engagement workers are working hard to ensure the drop in/open access is open full time for service users and people wishing to access support. This involves networking to arrange presence from other services in the drop in. In Colchester, we currently have Samaritans offering a drop in session on a monthly basis and a fortnightly drop in for free health checks and wellbeing coaching from the Terrence Higgins Trust. We also have a bookswap in the centre for service users to use.
