It's of prime importance that rural residents know about the great local organisations and services available to them to help enhance their lives. A key factor in alleviating the causes and symptoms of loneliness and rural isolation is connecting people to support. The Rural Coffee Caravan is a literal and metaphorical vehicle, providing a route into rural communities to help 'join those dots'. We are a catalyst, facilitating occasions which empower communities and help them to foster wider connections, and we love to collaborate! We believe we are all 'better together.'
Some examples of the organisations we collaborate with:
An independent social enterprise delivering feedback on people’s experiences with GP practices, hospitals, dentists, pharmacies, care homes and more, to those who can make changes, to improve local services for everyone.
HealthWatch representatives join us on our village visits to hear directly from people about the NHS care and services they have encountered. We also share HealthWatch surveys through our networks to encourage people to feedback and contribute to research.
Cassius, from Suffolk County Council, provides in care technology services for people aged 18+ with a range of health and care needs, as a complement to face-to-face care. Cassius products can be used to support people to live independently at home and give carers peace of mind, real-time information and backup support when needed. The service offers assessment, installation of devices, and maintenance support, making it straightforward – even for those who have not used technology before.
Our community engagement team carry examples of Cassius products on their vans and can demonstrate them at our Village Visits and refer people into the service.
500 Suffolk Reasons is a small, local, fundraising group where members each donate £1 a week and are then able to nominate a person or family in need of a helping hand. This could be a front-line worker unable to afford a vital car repair, a family who need particular equipment for a child, a recently homed person who needs furniture, for example. The needs and reasons will be as varied as we are as humans.
The fund has the ability to cut through red tape and deliver some simple kindness each week. The Rural Coffee Caravan team are able to identify and refer potential beneficiaries to the group to receive vital help, often in cases where other routes to support might have been exhausted.
Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service are consistently engaging with the community to promote education and teaching; working on prevention as much as they are response.
Non-operational members of the SFRS staff join us on some of our village visits to offer guidance and advice to visitors about fire prevention and awareness. Often, the connections we help to facilitate can lead to home visits and fire safety improvements being undertaken by SFRS, including installations of smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors.
Rural Coffee Caravan village visits offer ideal opportunities for local Police officers to connect with communities over a cuppa; hear concerns and advise on aspects of safety and security. Fraud and protection officers joining us on our visits are able to raise awareness of scams and fraudsters operating in the area and offer tips and advice on staying safe.
CAS provides infrastructure support to the Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise sector.
We work with CAS to connect the rural communities that we visit to support and funding for things like village hall development and sustainability, volunteer training and DBS, and community oil buying, and our team and volunteers can also access CAS workshops and additional training.
SCF provides grants to help charities and organisations supporting local people facing disadvantage, to improve their lives. In collaboration with SCF, our community engagement team help to identify households in need and deliver hardship funding when available. We also promote and raise awareness of SCF’s ‘Surviving Winter’ campaign and signpost village communities to grants available through SCF to help develop community buildings and equipment.
We work with district and parish councils in East Suffolk, West Suffolk, Mid Suffolk and Babergh, and Suffolk County Council, on appropriate initiatives, and to assist in getting their messages out to rural residents. We are recognised by Suffolk’s association of local councils as a vital service, helping to improve the lives of people throughout the county. Additionally, setting up regular Rural Coffee Caravan visits within a community can evidence need, opening access to locality budget funding and wider council support.
www.eastsuffolk.gov.uk
www.westsuffolk.gov.uk
www.midsuffolk.gov.uk
www.babergh.gov.uk
www.suffolk.gov.uk
Collaborating with SNEE, we promote, and support people to access and use, the NHS App; we host Covid Booster Vaccination clinics at some of our village visits, and we work with Patient Participation Groups and Social Prescribers.
YANA is a charity providing confidential support, funded counselling and suicide awareness and prevention resources for people involved in agriculture and rural business in East Anglia. Our community engagement team are trained as mental health first aiders with YANA, and courses are also offered to our volunteers.
We support Suffolk’s Food Banks with slow cookers from our Winter Warmth and Cooking with Kindness appeals, helping (so far) to provide more than 1000 Suffolk households in need with the means to cook hot, nutritious meals.
www.infolink.suffolk.gov.uk
www.localgiving.org/fundraising/Cooking-With-Kindness-2024-2025
The Rural Coffee Caravan’s Community Engagement Officers work with the latest initiatives to provide specialist energy guidance, on organisations and agencies who can be approached when someone may be struggling to stay warm in their home.
Our Community Engagement Officers can offer information on:
We can also direct people to organisations that can advise on and provide:
Suffolk Philharmonic Orchestra is a registered charity and a professional orchestra. Its musicians play in famous venues all over the world, and some teach at the UK’s globally respected music conservatoires.
Suffolk Philharmonic Orchestra believes in the profoundly positive impact that music has on mental health and understands that access to professional live music is not always easy, especially if you live in an isolated rural location and transport links are poor. As part of their work, they hold community concerts of small groups of professional musicians in villages across the county, partnering with other organisations and local community groups
The Rural Coffee Caravan is one of the organisations helping to deliver these concerts to the ‘doorsteps’ of the rural communities we visit, providing a light lunch or cream tea and a chance to connect with our team and information resources as part of the event. The occasions are always uplifting and entirely free.
Suffolk Artlink is a participatory arts charity that works with people of all abilities who might otherwise not have the opportunity to work with professional artists and musicians. They collaborate with partners, artists and communities to provide a wide range of community-based programmes. Their work takes place in the community in residential homes, schools, community centres, libraries and museums.
Their participants include people with long-term health conditions referred through social prescribing, older people in care, children in hospital, children under 5, family carers, and learning-disabled adults.
Suffolk Artlink artists and facilitators have joined The Rural Coffee Caravan at our visits on many occasions, delivering fun and engaging participatory workshops and events to some of the rural communities we visit.
We’ve held over 30 Golden Age Fairs to date. These are more than just a one-stop information shop for those of a ‘Golden Age’. Visitors are able to chat one-to-one with representatives from local and national organisations about concerns related to things like health, housing, cost of living, memory or mobility related conditions or struggles caring for loved ones.
Visitors are also sometimes able to access on the spot health checks, electric blanket safety tests and book home fire safety checks. The events are free, fun, offer creative activities and a chance to showcase local clubs, and also include a free, homemade lunch or afternoon tea.
We have also held Memory Lane Cream Teas in village halls throughout the county – a chance for local residents to get together over free, homemade refreshments and connect in their reminiscence of bygone times through shared photos, nostalgic music and household ephemera.
Along a similar vein to our Golden Age Fairs (hosting a ‘marketplace’ of support agencies in a single location for rural residents to access ‘on their doorstep’) The Rural Coffee Caravan partners with Ipswich and East Suffolk Alliance Integrated Neighbourhood Team to host Ways to Wellness Walk Ins.
These free events take place in village halls and community centres across East Suffolk, inviting people of all ages to come along and connect with a room full of representatives from local services and agencies that are dedicated to supporting people with their physical and mental wellbeing. There are also free refreshments on the day.
The Rural Coffee Caravan
Office 1
Church Farm Yard
The Causeway
IP31 3AB
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