BLOG - Sharing Community Involvement Experiences, Opinions And Best Practice

Peter Jones is the Digital Volunteers Manager at Beatbullying:

Bullying is a malaise that affects us all. Practically everyone has had some experience of it, whether at school or work, as the victim, the witness or even as a bully. It is especially widespread amongst young people. Our research repeatedly indicates that 1 in 3 children and young people experience bullying and emotional child on child violence.

When bullying goes unchecked in our schools and communities, the breeding ground for gang culture, crime and violence prospers. Acknowledgement of these consequences is reflected in the growing number of support services for young people experiencing ‘offline’ bullying. At present, though, not enough exists to support them in the online environment, where we know at least 40% of young people have experienced some kind of cyberbullying.

CyberMentors is the latest project by Beatbullying designed to meet this need. CyberMentors.org.uk is a new service for the digital age: a traditional mentoring system delivered via a social networking site. Young people aged 10-25 are trained as CyberMentors, in schools and online, in universities and workplaces across the UK, so that they can offer support to other young people who have/are experiencing cyberbullying.

Beatbullying is working with a variety of partners in order to populate the site with young, dynamic and empathetic staff from companies across England. One of these is City & Guilds – a member of City Action.

Kathryn Kirkpatrick from City & Guilds has this to say about being involved with CyberMentors:

“We were drawn to working with Beatbullying on the CyberMentoring project due to the huge difference staff can make by using only a small amount of time. The scheme fits in well with our CSER programme and was easy to sign up for. Staff attend a one day training course and then volunteer for just 2 hours a week online. The feedback from staff was great and 100% of those that were trained said that being able to take part in this award winning and pioneering social phenomenon made them feel good about the company they work for”. 

Beatbullying is always looking for new partners to work with on CyberMentors. We are holding our next training session on Saturday 20th February 2010 at our offices in Crystal Palace. Training will be from 11am until 4.30pm. If you, or anyone you know is 20-25 and interested in volunteering online for just 2 hours a week, please drop us a quick email to digitalvolunteering@beatbullying.org

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Shenelle spent nine weeks within the Corporate Responsibility team as a City Business Trainee, a scheme funded by the City of London and facilitated by local charity, the Brokerage Citylink.  The scheme offers many talented young people from the City-fringe boroughs a unique opportunity to undertake a paid work placement after their A’levels within a City business.  This is Shenelle’s story of her placement:

“As I commuted to the City on July 6th 2009, I felt like an outsider amongst the well known businesses. However, by September 4th 2009 my knowledge about the City had developed immensely and I felt like a real City worker! read more

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Every cloud…..

by Ray on 16/07/2009

No matter how the information comes – word of mouth, through the media or the various periodic indicators – one thing is agreed; the nation’s construction sector is in a bad way, consistently and precariously placed on the wrong side of the growth/contraction divide. Indeed, one index forecasts a staggering 16% shrinkage in the sector during 2009. The technical data is unfortunately backed up by lay-offs, redundancies and closures on the ground.

However, even this thunderhead has something of a silver lining. read more

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City Action organise regular, half-day tours of the City fringe Boroughs, offering a unique insight into the challenges faced by charitable organisations within those Boroughs. As the newest member of the City Action team, I was delighted to be able to spend a sunny morning attending the most recent tour of Lambeth on the 4th June. read more

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Investing in Leaders

05.05.2009

The idea of using volunteering as a way to develop leadership seems to be growing. I know that City Action has been working with Barclays to place volunteers into trustee, mentoring and finance project roles as part of their Leadership Development Programme.  Also, the Civil Service fast stream now offer a one year placement with [...]

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Can the Third Sector get us out of a tight squeeze?

17.04.2009

Whilst the headlines these days are grabbed by multi billion pound bailouts of the banking system there’s a growing view in politics that a more ground up approach might actually be the best route out of the credit crunch.
Speaking at the Voice 09 conference, the Conservative party leader said Britain needed to open up its [...]

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Employee Volunteering Made Easy

19.03.2009

We are so pleased to see that new volunteering matches and activity are already emerging from our annual reception event, which took place on 12th March 2009. With over 60 businesses and Livery companies in attendance, it was clear that enthusiasm around employee volunteering is very much alive and well!
We have picked up messages from our clients, [...]

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A different kind of 'love'…

16.02.2009

…I hope that you all had a happy Valentines weekend and enjoyed spending time with your loved ones.  Last week, City Action was busy gearing up for the weekend by collaborating with CNN on a Valentine’s themed feature, broadcast on Saturday 14th, about our volunteering brokerage service.
CNN reporter Adrian Finighan visits Spitalfields Crypt Trust where [...]

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The value of supporting education..

23.01.2009

In our January email update, City Action sent all our clients a selection of volunteering options within schools.  The sessions are aimed at helping the students discover the ‘world of work’, ranging from interview/CV workshops to developing their own product/business concepts.  The support of employee volunteers is vital to these sessions as they bring with [...]

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2008 Round-Up

24.12.2008

As 2008 is nearly at an end I thought I would take this opportunity to highlight some of the successes and achievements of City Action, our business clients and community partners over the past year.
Despite the difficult economic circumstances, City Action’s business clients have continued to be a great source of support to our City-fringe [...]

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