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Church Project Support

Case Studies - The High Street Centre, Rawmarsh

Caroline Langston is the Centre Development Manager at The High Street Centre, in Rawmarsh Methodist Church, on the outskirts of Rotherham. Caroline became aware of TfR as a result of a flyer that she received from TfR about their Advice Surgeries that are offered to churches and community groups. She contacted the TfR adviser to discuss the needs and ideas for the further development of the Centre. Attached are some comments from Caroline on the help and advice that she received from TfR advisers and some information about the High Street Centre project.

How did TfR help?

blue roomTfR offered advice and support to help us access funding for a much needed admin support worker. They suggested we approach Phoenix Enterprises and their Destinations project. Destinations help people to overcome barriers to employment through training and work placements. The support we got from TfR was great! Because of TfR’s guidance we now have in post our own admin support worker! A job description for the post was agreed with Phoenix, and a contract put in place. Phoenix cover costs of our admin support for the first three months, for the next three months costs are shared, and for the final three months the project covers costs.

The contract in place is for a work-based placement. This means that our admin support worker is in receipt of a full time wage, and at the same time is working towards an NVQ in Customer Service. Phoenix has provided this opportunity to learn and train on the job at no charge. They provide an assessor, who visits and works with the admin support person on a weekly basis and signs off records of activity as evidence of work; the assessor acts as a personal tutor who can be approached by the individual with any problems around work or training. Probationary period is 13 weeks.

Benefits to the individual include practical work experience, training and skill development. The organisation benefits from extra resource and the opportunity of providing support to a local person.

Project Details/background

conference roomThe High Street Centre was officially set up in 2002, and I was taken on as the Centre Development Manager last year. We are a company limited by guarantee working in partnership with Rawmarsh Methodist Church and other community organisations to improve the quality of life for the people of Rawmarsh and Parkgate.

We provide a unique blend of faith/community facilities that are both up to date and meet the diverse needs of meetings, activities and conference events in a local setting which is combined with the advantage of ample good parking and now have disability friendly access to most of the building and a wide range of facilities. Some of the things we do include, provision of meeting space for 30 local groups and organisations; provision of office space to organisations that share our community ethos, eg Rotherham Mind (Young Persons), Rawmarsh and Parkgate Partnership and ACTIVATE!; and provide a management and co-ordination of service to projects serving the local community, eg ACTIVATE! – this is a project which provides excellent opportunities for children and young people to enjoy activities, outings, and weekly clubs; and where the young people are encouraged to take on responsibilities for planning which works in Rawmarsh.

Needs of Project/what the project provided

conference roomThe Centre needed a worker to support and assist the Centre Manager with it’s the day to day running of the Centre, development and sustainability.
The admin support worker has provided flexibility to me as the manager, allowing more time to work on the development of the Centre. The workbased placement has provided an excellent opportunity for our admin support worker. She is thoroughly enjoying the variety of work at the centre, working alongside some of the different activities taking place at the centre, eg Mind, toddler group, sugar craft, credit union, to ensure that the rooms are fit for purpose and providing general admin support for me. In addition she has already done a course on food hygiene and is attending a weekly OCR CLAiT for IT users course.

Way Forward/sustainability

TfR helped the Centre, not only to look at where we were, but also to look at where we wanted to get. Alot of work has been done at the Centre, and it has grown far quicker than we all thought it would.

There is still a lot of development work to do, eg work needs to be done to move and update the kitchen to be able to enable us to establish a luncheon club complementing the existing Leisure Group which could also be used by other community groups and the creation of a dedicated training room to extend the training provision in the area.

We will be working with Liz from TfR as we carry out a Reflection Workshop which will review the success of the project to date. TfR has really helped us in its advisory capacity, giving us ideas to help us to take our next steps to sustainability and increase the support we are able to provide to the local community.

More Information

If you’d like to find out more about the High Street Centre or if you would like to use any of the facilities or services on offer please do get in touch on 01709 719 478 or hscrawmarsh@hotmail.com