People of Pendle Update March 2026

An update on the various projects and works happening in Pendle...

CVS in Pendle Report
CVS has submitted a report to Pendle Borough Council to evidence the work done by CVS in Pendle.
Please do take a look, you might be surprised 😊
Summary: https://www.dropbox.com/t/PqDWdiTMCiig2YF4 
Full Report: https://www.dropbox.com/t/03qFRBHMwFkOEbV0
Comments welcomed to [email protected].
Should you wish to discuss partnership working, collaboration or just to have a chat about the work we do, please contact Christine Blythe, Chief Executive Officer or Tracey Noon, Operations Manager: [email protected]

BPRCVS working with Lancashire County Council: Adult Social Care Transformation Fund

• CVS employed Annie Anderson, Social Connector who supports those with hoarding issues, empowering them to engage with specialist services and other services available to them such as counselling. Referrals are increasing nicely.
• We have three Social Connectors who specialise in Adult Social Care – one for each area. They work as part of the Social Prescribing Team and support people in the same way as Social Connectors and Social Prescribing Linkworkers. Referrals have increase substantially over the last few weeks.
• LCC ASC also agreed to CVS delivering a pilot telephone befriending scheme. We have six volunteers at the moment who are allocated clients to telephone each week from our office in Yorkshire Street, Burnley. We are looking to expand this project as it is in great demand. The Team is working closely with our Development Team to recruit more volunteers.

Social Prescribing and Eric Wright Small Groups Funding Update

• 8 Pendle groups applied to Eric Wright funding in 2025 amounting to £5,036.16.
• 13 Pendle groups have been successful in ICB funding applications amounting to £61,305.49. This funding for small groups is only made possible because of CVS involvement in many and varied partnerships and collaborations. CVS is able to influence decision-makers about the value of volunteering and small groups. East Lancashire is the only area to have this funding connected to the Social Connector service – without which there would be limited destinations for the Linkworkers and Social Connectors to refer into.
• Funding for 2025/26 is now spent – we have confirmation of 2026/27 funding and will open the funding as soon as we have it in the bank – should be June or July 2026.
• More Pendle Groups have applied for funding this year– we made a concerted effort in Pendle to target and support groups in applying for all of our funding streams. This, together with the work Tracey Noon carried out with Bradley Big Local has helped to make more groups aware of the services CVS can offer.

H&Wb for Children and Families
We are still only able to provide a social prescribing service for children and young people in Pendle West (Brierfield and Nelson).

Schools are closely linked with our Team and value the service because it supports children and young people who do not meet the threshold for LCC Children and Families Support – we work at Levels 1 and 2 on the Continuum of Need. We have had to pause the service in Pendle East due to lack of funding at present. Pendle East PCN has employed their own SPLW for Children and Young People.

Young people’s mental health and support for them is a concern in all areas.

We are continuing to try and influence various bodies including Lancashire County Council. In light of this, we had a meeting with LCC’s Children and Family Wellbeing Service to discuss a Social Connection pilot for children and young people which will be delivered initially in Rossendale with a view to scaling up to include Pendle East and Burnley. I will be chasing this up over the coming weeks. Watch this space!

People of Pendle

• On average 30/35 people attend each meeting – attendance has increased since Christmas.
• Emerging themes:
• Young people’s mental health continues to be a concern – young people falling through the gap in services e.g.LCC Children and Family Wellbeing Service only taking those who are at level 3 on the continuum of need. Our SPLWs take levels 1 & 2 though are limited in their capacity.
• Physical health is also a concern which has been discussed with Pendle being in the lower percentile for life expectancy.
• People of Pendle works closely with Pendle Network for Change and will have a standing item on the agenda for Wellbeing which will include updates on the H&Wb Partnership and the Pendle Leisure Trust developments and perhaps the Virtual Resilience Hub 😊.

Pendle Network for Change

• Lots of information was gathered from the 100 people who attended the Health Gathering last June. The information has formed the toolkit currently being development by Pendle Network for Change and People of Pendle.
• PNC is working on their next project which will include systems change work. Ideas include a Virtual Resilience Hub – a kind of multi-disciplinary team which focuses on actions for people who need support from multi agencies.
• Watch this space!

LACVS/Lancashire and South Cumbria Alliance

• This project continues and is linked to our Volunteering for Health and Community Hub
• Working across Lancashire with NHS Charities on developing a process and foundation for NHS volunteers
• BPRCVS continues to represent the VCF at county level and beyond.

You Decide

• Christine continues to be the voice of the small groups in the VCF sector at high level discussions such as this bid to the National Lottery for funding for small groups across Lancashire. Pendle is a specific target area for this funding.
• The vision is to empower groups and volunteers to decide what is needed in their area and sit on funding panels to decide allocations of funding.
• Watch this space!

Helping Hands Community Lottery
VCF groups can raise funds for their organisation by signing up. Please see https://bprcvs.co.uk/index.html for more details.

Integrated Care Board Community Health and Wellbeing Fund

• Again, Christine is representing the small VCF groups on these meetings which have a remit of discussing how the funding will work.
• Lancashire is one of seven pilot areas in the country.
• The fund is envisaged to be match funding across Lancashire supporting health and wellbeing projects. Our match is the ICB funding. East Lancashire is the only area to have this funding as a result of CVS work, influence and confidence in CVS processes.
• This process is stalled at the moment.

Working with Edge Hill University
A new project which BPRCVS and Edge Hill University are working on together:

• Training staff in effecting behavioural change particularly in relation to chronic illness and inactivity
• Rolled out to CVS staff and rolling out to VCF groups in 2026

Ongoing Support, Training and Workshops for Groups

• Rebecca Nolan, Development Worker, Heather Starkie, Development Worker and Julie Overson, Project Support, Caroline Littleworth Volunteer Co-ordinator and Kim Procter Project Support work together to support those small groups who need a little guidance in setting up, ensuring they have everything they need to keep safe, keep their beneficiaries safe and deliver their services which support so many in our community. The amalgamation of The Volunteer Hub and the Group Support Team to form the Development Team gives CVS more capacity to help those groups who really need it.
• We continue to deliver Monitoring and Evaluation Workshops for groups who have been successful in their applications for funding with us and those who would like a refresher. The workshops are held online once a month. New dates have been added – see www.bprcvs.co.uk or contact [email protected] for more details.
• We trained panel members for our ICB funding stream in 2025 and it was a resounding success with representatives from small groups making the decisions on allocations of funding. This is to continue in 2026 and has expanded recently to include the Eric Wright Small Groups Funding.
• We have also been working with a cohort of representatives from small groups to review our processes, starting with the ICB Social Prescribing Small Groups’ funding. Most of the suggestions and tweaks, we have implemented including permitting those who struggle to write funding bids, get their projects down on paper to either request a structured interview or provide a video of them answering the questions on the application form. We will be rolling this out to our other processes in the coming months and years. Small groups are getting more involved in their CVS and how we do things – can only be a good thing!
• We are hoping to introduce a new self-assessment tool for small groups this year which will empower small groups to review, refresh and plan their future. Another…. Watch this space!