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Impact Report 2019-2020

Contents

Zest vision & values

Achievements & performance

Strategic development

The Zest Centre: Leisure & Library

Health & wellbeing

Children, young people & families

Work & training

COVID response

Financial review

Future plans

Zest vision & values Our vision is:

Our mission is: ONE

TWO

To provide a healthy living centre delivering responsive services to tackle local inequalities, including: a. Health and wellbeing b. Employment and skills c. Sport, leisure and recreation

To foster communities where everyone feels welcomed, valued and can fully participate in the life of the community.

THREE To play an active role in supporting other disadvantaged communities in Sheffield.

We have four distinct values that underpin our work and everything we do Personalised To achieve the best personal outcomes we navigate individuals and families through a tailored journey of support that can involve accessing a range of joined up wellbeing support services provided and hosted by Zest. Inclusive We strive to keep our services and facilities affordable, physically and culturally accessible. We run a range of tailored sessions including women only and disability specific swim sessions, and host the only ramp access swimming pool in the city. Asset based We empower local people and address local need by identifying the strengths within our community. Collaborative We collaborate by default in order to identify issues, push for change, develop collective solutions and achieve the best outcomes for our local communities.

Achievements & performance

Fatma (mother of 3 children who regularly attend Zest activities)

increase in turnover

recovery

collaboration and business development

Organisational Covid response and recovery; improve service integration; equality and diversity review 4

The main activities during 2019-20 were:

Strategic development

Health and wellbeing

Work and training

The Zest Centre: Leisure and Library

Children and families

COVID-19 response

Strategic development The team provided both central management functions and have been responsible for driving broader strategic organisational development. Key deliverables have included:

A Governance Review, working with trustees to undertake a review aligned to the NCVO Charity Governance Code.

A phase 1 membership campaign, resulting in recruitment of 35 new community members, as part of wider plans to reinvigorate our membership base.

A team restructure, recognising the need to invest in additional senior business development support.

Independent Organisational review, by Locality to benchmark our financial, asset and management arrangements and identify priorities for development. This includes investment in our financial management capacity, and an asset development plan.

The Zest Centre: Leisure & Library The Zest Centre sits at the heart of the Zest service offer, offering inclusive leisure services at an affordable price. This includes a ramp access warm water swimming pool, a women only and a mixed gym. We continued to offer a range of tailored sessions including, disability swim sessions, women and men only swim sessions. Zest are also part of the Sheffield Physical Activity Referral Scheme (SPARS) network, offering tailored exercise and advice for people with a range of complex health conditions. Delivered

cardiac rehabilitation classes

Supported

new exercise referral clients

Sheffield City Council (SCC) continued to contribute towards the centre’s revenue costs through their recurrent service level agreement. Despite a 2-month closure period in order to replace our pool heating system, there were still:

We signed up:

The Citrus ‘pay as you feel’ café business model in partnership with Food Works, continued to provide a central focus and social hub for the centre as well as a fantastic platform for volunteering and training. Key developments during the year included:

Volunteer Library The children's library area was completely redecorated and we changed the furniture to make it a more inviting space and a more comfortable space for families to read together. We were lucky enough to have some bespoke artwork painted on our library walls, which included literary quotes which had been chosen as favourites by children who regularly use the library. Following a donation of some machines and sourcing a further £3,000 grant funding, we were able to upgrade our popular, free to access Library ITC Suite. Despite some reduced footfall due to the temporary closure of the swimming pool:

(2nd highest in 16 volunteer managed libraries)

(also 2nd highest in the city)

(the highest in the city)

Health & wellbeing

Health trainer client The Zest health and wellbeing service offer has gone from strength to strength this year, including:

establishing the Live Lighter Sheffield service

expanded GP support services for the most vulnerable

development of dementia support services

a range of accessible community activities

We have worked with a range of partners in the city centre and across the north west area of the city to meet the needs of the local community. Our community health offer which includes People Keeping Well services commissioned by Sheffield City Council supported:

Local highlights include: Community Wellbeing Programme & Social Prescribing 323 people have been supported through Social Prescribing [60% female clients] and 411 people have been supported to improve their health and wellbeing through health trainer support. Our BAME health worker successfully delivered a range of workshops including a Women’s Wellbeing Course, Family Health Workshops and Community Health Workshops.

Dementia Support Since the service began to receive referrals from the Age UK Sheffield Specialist Advice Service, during the Autumn, a total of 31 referrals have been received into the service for support. Dementia Friends training has been delivered to Zest staff, Winn Gardens volunteers, Cycling for All and Step Out Sheffield which reached 58 individuals.

Mental Health Support As part of our partnership project with Central Primary Care Network (City Centre GP Practices), the Zest Mental Health Key Worker worked closely with a Clinical Psychologist employed by the Sheffield Health and Social Care Trust. Together they have supported 139 patients.

Suicide Awareness 18 members of staff were trained in suicide awareness. The health team distributed men’s suicide awareness literature across the People Keeping Well areas at key community locations.

Small grants Distributed to the value of £4,689 to enable grassroots organisations to support the 5 ways to wellbeing (Give, Be Active, Connect, Take Notice, Learn) and become more dementia friendly. Grants have funded exercise classes for older people, social activities for carers and young people’s mental health courses plus many other activities.

Partnerships Partnerships have continued to evolve with Shipshape, City Primary Care Network, St John’s Church on Winn Gardens and Age UK Sheffield.

IN FOCUS: Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Older Women’s Group Zest has been developing connections with older members of the local BAME community over many years. This year we have worked with 36 older, predominantly Arabic speaking women from a diverse range of cultural backgrounds, helping those who are isolated to form social connections and improve their health literacy. It has been wonderful to see leaders emerging within this section of the community, through volunteering opportunities. Group highlights include the Community Health Course: 23 BAME women attended over 5 sessions to learn about keeping healthy, looking at heart health, diabetes, and liver disease. All who completed feedback reported that they had improved understanding of how to support their own health and would recommend the course to others. As a result of this work, peer support has grown and there is increased understanding amongst the women of how to manage their own health and how to access health and other services. Volunteering has helped the women leaders grow in confidence and improved community connectivity.

City wide highlights include: Live Lighter Sheffield This year saw the launch of Live Lighter Sheffield, a city-wide child and adult weight management service commissioned by Sheffield City Council. The service supported 705 people in total and provided brief interventions training to 145 health professionals. Group based programmes started in June and across the year the service has supported over 150 families in our family lifestyle programme and over 500 adults have been seen at our face to face group programmes. On the 25th November, the service launched an online weight management platform for people to access weight management support and resources from the comfort of their own home. During the period from November-end of March approx. 55 people accessed this platform and to date a total of 141 people have accessed this offer, 80% of whom were female. The Team have provided training to a total of 145 health professionals in raising the issue of overweight and obesity.’ This includes staff at: - Ryegate Children’s Centre - The pre-op team at Sheffield Children’s Hospital - School Nursing Service - Staff at Park Health Centre - The Arrythmia team at the Northern General Hospital - People Keeping Well Learning Network. 92% of the participants providing feedback rated the training 8/10 or higher.

BBC Documentary In July 2019 the service took part in a BBC2 documentary series presented by Miriam Margolyes. The documentary, ‘Miriam’s Big Fat Adventure', set out to explore body image and obesity. The service featured in the documentary exploring how we operate day to day, what our sessions consist of and the crew also followed one of the families engaged in the service. The documentary provided excellent exposure for the work we are doing to support families.

Smokefree schools Zest continued to successfully deliver the city-wide young people’s Smokefree Service commissioned by Sheffield City Council. Across the year the service: - Successfully supported 50 young people to stop smoking - The Team supported secondary schools and 4 primary schools in our whole school approach to being smokefree, delivering smokefree messages via physical activity in a fun and engaging way.

- Across the secondary schools we have trained a total of 60 peer educators around the harmful effects of smoking and the benefits of being smokefree. The young people training all received ASDAN accreditation. - We have trained a total of 62 health professionals in very brief advice around smoking.

Children, young people & families

Lucy (mother of 3 children and Zest member) The range of activities and services on offer are for the whole family and help children and parents’ bond, communicate better and learn together. Our service helps children create new relationships and strengthen personal skills within a positive, supportive environment. Early years We delivered a range of activities for families with pre-school children. This includes the baby and toddler group which supported 32 children, 83% of whom are from BAME communities, Shake Rattle’n’Sing Group and the Sling Library. We also deliver the Empowering Parents service working in partnership with Sheffield City Council and local Family Centres. This project has supported and trained 25 parent volunteers, 72% of whom are from BAME communities, who in turn have supported 139 parents. There have been some great outcomes, Primary aged children There were 5,107 attendances at activities supporting 214 different young people. This includes: - Term time after school activities: 158 individuals, 2372 attendances - Holiday activities: 173 individuals, 1761 attendances - Healthy Holidays: 119 individuals, 974 meals Tales from the playground (TFTP) Creative workshops were accessed by 74 primary aged children during the Easter holidays, and saw children creating rap songs, alien creatures and planets. This work didn’t stop there, as the TFTP team came back in June having turned the kids’ designs into a theatre experience. For a week Zest and parts of Upperthorpe were transformed into an interactive playscape exploring what it means to work together and to welcome new friends into our community. Part of the Sheffield-wide migration Matters Festival, 'Beam me Upperthorpe', was a brilliant experience for the whole community.

Safer together This year saw the culmination of the South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue (SYF&R) sponsored project 'Safer Together', run by Zest to educate children about road safety, water safety, home safety and fire escape plans. This project had over 430 attendances this year and has built lasting relationships between SYF&R, Zest and the local community. To celebrate the end of this project we had a Lantern Parade. The kids made their own safety themed lanterns and walked one of the road safety routes to highlight one of the key messages of the project, to 'Be Safe Be Seen' on dark nights.

Getting Active The Zest football and basketball sessions have been well attended this year with over 835 attendances. In September we launched a new project in collaboration with Sheffield Hallam and the University of Sheffield Student Unions, called ‘Kids Community Varsity’. This brings University sports teams together to deliver activities for local children. These sessions also provide kids with an opportunity to talk to students about their experiences of University. Despite Covid-19 lockdown cutting the project short we had over 180 attendances at these sessions.

Edward Street Homework Club The Communities team have also been supporting Edward Street Flats and St George’s Tenants and Residents Association (TARA) to set up and run a homework support club. Through this group our team have supported 26 individual children with their school work and education.

Wider community development This Community Can A new 3-year National Lottery funded project began in the final quarter of the year and represents our efforts to strengthen our community development work with key estates in our local area, enabling support networks to develop and helping people and to make new connections.

Youth Support

Youth service volunteer The Zest Youth service continues to provide a vital, safe, social hub for young people, further strengthened by a successful Children in Need Application, providing 3 years grant funding from August 2019 to develop our youth offer. The main aims of the project are centred on making 3 key differences, where young people will:

IMPROVE life skills and a stronger voice

FEEL safer in their community

DEVELOP improved self confidence & resilience

The project has started to establish a range of provision to achieve these differences, including a weekly youth club, 1-2-1 counselling, safe space conversations, homework support (online), coached sports sessions, online social forums, parent support sessions and school liaison.

Work & training Zest for Work provides a range of interconnected services, taking a holistic approach to supporting individuals. An experienced staff team provide Matrix accredited Information Advice and Guidance services supporting people with a range of complex personal and health issues to empower individuals to access employment, training and voluntary opportunities.

We provide a keyworker service, to support economically inactive customers back into employment. We also deliver specialist mental health support, receiving referrals for two courses Anxiety Management and Managing Depression,

IN FOCUS: The Zest Family Adult Community Education Service (FACES) Delivered 31 courses. This has involved 298 adults aged 19+ attending courses; 47 (16%) of these were male and 251 (84%) were female. Out of the 298, 96 (32%) were BAME Learners and 83 (28%) disclosed having a disability, Feedback from learners has been very positive with excellent retention and achievement levels both at 94%.

Move to delivering courses online with some learners in the class using a blended approach as we continue to adapt to the Covid challenge. Secure further opportunities to expand our offer including more innovative and integrated health and work support, and increased provision to address the digital divide.

COVID response during 2020 Overall Stats Total families supported – 459 Online activity attendances - 1273 Number of child meals provided – 2602

Zoom and Play!

Homework Support 201 individual sessions

Our activities go online! Beginning in the May half term and running until September, the Zoom and Play sessions proved to be a popular way of allowing children to socialise and play together remotely

As schools closed in March we rose to the challenge of providing educational support to our community. Within 2 weeks we had recruited and trained volunteers to provide 1-2-1 support via Zoom to ages 5-16. This programme has run non-stop since then,

Healthy Holidays - 2602 meals provided Zest coordinated provision of healthy hampers, meal kits and activity packs for families who may struggle with the cost of food during school holidays or lockdown

Summer Play Trail - https://arcg.is/18vrqD As a response to Covid and lack of activities available for children during the summer, we linked 9 local outdoor play spaces. The Summer Play Trail challenged children and families to get outside and explore together.

Wellbeing Packs Christmas As we were unable to host our usual indoor family fun day, we created a trail throughout Upperthrope with crafts, games and Covid Secure Santa visits. 35 families attended

55 Wellbeing Packs (both spring and Christmas) prepared and distributed. The packs provided information about Zest’s offering as a Community Hub and other key services locally as well as information about maintaining wellbeing during lockdown. The packs included wellbeing activity ideas and treats. Adult groups go online! 122 participants of face-to-face groups went online…with 810 visits to online groups!

Parenting Support Lockdown Facebook - 107 members At the very beginning of Lockdown 1.0 we established the Zest Children and Families Group on Facebook as a way to stay in touch with local families. The group has been used to disseminate COVID messages, provide activities and educational materials for children and as a support hub for parents with various queries. It is still growing and continuing to provide a valuable service as we move into Lockdown 2.0. We also established a group for the Edward Street Flats community. This is a smaller group that is administered by a local resident alongside Zest staff. It has been used to great effect to enable connections across this community during the various COVID restrictions.

We supported 6 families throughout lockdown with parenting or domestic issues exacerbated by lockdown Essential items delivery service 29 households supported with regular weekly deliveries of shopping from April to June for people who had Covid-19, were self isolating or otherwise were unable to get essential items.

Financial review

Future Plans (set in Summer 2020) Over the next 12 months our experienced and knowledgeable leadership team will be focused on implementing a robust Covid-19 response and recovery process, working to ensure we can develop safe and accessible services in the immediate term, whilst working with key stakeholders to review and agree plans to help secure our longer-term future. Looking to the year ahead, our strategic priorities will be; COVID recovery • Adapting services and premises to ensure they are Covid-safe and accessible. • Engaging the community to understand and address their concerns in relation to Covid-19 including developing new doorstep services and promoting Covid-safe behaviour. • Reviewing our leisure offer to ensure it remains viable as we work to re-open the Zest Centre on a phased basis. • Being prepared and service ready in the event of future lockdowns.

Developing services and securing the future • Working in partnership with Sheffield City Council to develop revenue, capital and community asset transfer plans for 2021-22 and beyond as part of both the recovery process and the emergent City Leisure Strategy. • Undertaking a wider operational review to address service viability and improve integration. • Continuing to grow our service base, driven by effective local community development, provision of high quality IAG services, and wider health support services, building on the success of the last 12 months.

Diverse Voice • Zest will commit to reviewing both trustee and staff recruitment to promote improved ethnic diversity and representation. • Zest will form an Equality & Diversity Group to develop and agree the collective action that Zest can take to raise awareness, address institutional racism, adapt services and help enable everyone in our community to thrive.

Impact Report 19-20