Blog | Middlesbrough Voluntary Development Agency

Lift the Ban: Campaigning for the Right to Work

19 June 2019 - 11:32am

In this guest blog for Refugee Week, Jen Laws, Campaigns Project Manager for the North East with Asylum Matters, shares some of the realities for people seeking asylum in the UK and why policy change is so important.

Shining a light - what a week!

13 June 2019 - 8:37pm

National Volunteers Week falls on 1 -7th June every year. It is a chance for charities to thank the many amazing people without whom their organisation would not be able to do what they do.

Back to the Future for social prescribing

21 March 2019 - 1:02pm

I feel a bit like Marty McFly having just stepped out of Doc's DeLorean and being transported back to 2014. Scotland voted to stay a member of the United Kingdom in an independent referendum, Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi won the Nobel Peace Prize, Friends celebrated its 20th anniversary making me feel very old, Conchita Wurst won Eurovision, Ed Sheeran and ‘thinking out loud’ makes number one twice and we were watching ‘The Theory of Everything’ and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ at the cinema.

A tablet to mask the pain

11 March 2019 - 5:11pm

Prevention is the word on everyone's lips for health and wellbeing, yet why do my experiences suggest we still look to mask symptoms rather than cure them?

The current health and social care agenda has a focus on prevention, the Care Act 2014 stated that there will be ‘A greater emphasis on prevention ‘ - local authorities and providers of support would encourage and assist people to lead healthy lives, reducing the chances of them needing more support in the future’

Losing control

7 February 2019 - 3:56pm

So… this week I have spent two days in Birmingham being energised, inspired and challenged with bells on* by the people I met at Losing Control (a conference hosted by Practical Governance and the Social Change Agency).