Our speaker Andrea, from Citizens Advice (CAB) St Albans introduced us to the work of CAB and the Project she is working on to raise awareness of the St Albans Healthy Hub and its partner organisations https://www.stalbans.gov.uk/healthy-hub – based at the Civic Centre (where St Albans CAB is based). Andrea is pictured here with Barbara Saunders who chaired the meeting. Andrea is holding a copy of the St Albans Healthy Hub Handout which available to download as a PDF by clicking here St Albans Healthy Hub handout.
Andrea began by explaining the work of Citizens Advice (CAB) – you can read more by downloading their annual review https://citizensadvicestalbans.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Annual-Review-2022-23.pdf . The services cover St Albans and surrounding areas – Harpenden, London Colney, Redbourn, Wheathampstead. They have 91 volunteers and 28 staff and last year they helped 9,900 people with 24,000 issues, helped clients gain £1.5 million in income and clear £123,000 in debt. Main areas of support are benefits, housing, debt, relationships, children, immigration. 60% of contact is made by women (40% by men). Median age of people seeking help is 45-49. Some communities are under-represented. Foodbanks are a good partner for harder to reach communities. 62% of people who make contact receive information and don’t require any further help. CAB is a knowledge based organisation. Pre-COVID most contact was face-to-face, during COVID things went to telephone/Zoom and now it is a blended service.
CAB has funding until March to raise awareness of the St Albans Healthy Hub and its partner organisations. The Healthy Hub has trained advisers. The Healthy Hub has been set up to address the huge health inequalities in the area. Poor mental health is a big issue – 47% of CAB clients have physical or mental health issues. This is particularly relevant to mention here because 10 Oct is World Mental Health Day. Sopwell is an area of social depravation so Andrea is arranging to meet with as many groups that meet in the Cottonmill Community Centre as possible so that more people will benefit from the services of the Healthy Hub.
Andrea gave us a handout with the list of partners – the information is also on the Healthy Hub website https://www.stalbans.gov.uk/healthy-hub and is available to download as a PDF by clicking here St Albans Healthy Hub handout .
Our Member Sarah Lichman is a CAB volunteer for Hertsmere and has spoken about it in the past. CAB welcomes new volunteers if anyone is interested.
Before coffee, Denise ran us through the forthcoming “Orange The World Events” in November – and requested help from Members https://sigbi.org/st-albans-and-district/2023/orange23/
After coffee Barbara reported back on the SI London Chilterns Region meeting that had been held on Zoom the previous Saturday https://sigbi.org/london-chilterns/2023/10/04/agm23/ The speaker, who was a victim of domestic abuse was a real inspiration and showed the importance of the work we did in observing the Specialist Domestic Abuse Courts last year https://sigbi.org/2023/specialist-domestic-abuse-courts/
At the Region meeting the SIGBI Modernisation Proposal was discussed. Members are encouraged to complete the survey by 27 Oct – SIGBI Modernisation – Feedback form
We quickly ran through some of the events in the Club Programme before closing the meeting https://sigbi.org/st-albans-and-district/club-programme/.
The meeting had been disrupted by having to switch venue at late notice to St Julian’s Church, Abbots Avenue St Albans. Thanks to Janet Audley-Charles who arranged for St Julian’s to have us (round the corner from Cottonmill Community and Cycling Centre), and thanks to St Julian’s for taking us in. We certainly are a flexible bunch!