Community

Children 1st Parentline Helpline Volunteers

23 August 2023: The Helpline Volunteers at Children 1st Parentline support families across Scotland every day of the yearby phone, webchat and email.

Children 1st Parentline

Volunteer for Parentline

Children 1st Parentline are looking for new Helpline Volunteers at their main office on Whitehouse Loan, Edinburgh, and the next training course starts on Saturday 23 September.

The initial training course ensures that volunteers have the skills and knowledge they need to feel confident in the role and Children 1st provide ongoing support and opportunities to develop in the role.

How to apply

If this is something you’d like to be part of, please see the Helpline Volunteer – Children 1st Parentline website for more information about the role and how to apply.

Children 1st Parentline Helpline Volunteers

Alternatively, please contact Ali Boyes, the Helpline Supervisor:

Email Ali

Parent and Carers Consultation

Updated 31 January 2023: You are invited to an online meeting from 6.30-7.30 pm on Wednesday 1 February 2023 to:

discuss solutions and support for parents
discuss how these can be communicated with all parents and carers

Attend the meeting

Please contact the City of Edinburgh Council Parental Engagement email account to book a space to attend the meeting, or send your views marked with for the attention of Marie Lyon.

Email the Parental Engagement team

City speed limit consultation

23 January 2023: The City of Edinburgh Council is looking for views on proposals to expand the city’s network of 20mph streets, as well as lowering speed limits on roads that have limits of 40mph or more, which are mainly rural.

20mph speed limit proposals map

Rural road proposals map

Whatever your views about our speed limit proposals, we want to hear from you.

Take part and complete the online survey which is available on the Council’s Consultation and Engagement Hub.

Click here to complete the survey

Please forward this email to any contacts that you feel would be interested in making their views heard on the proposals. The consultation is open and you can feedback until 8 February 2023.

Marchmont and Sciennes Christmas Tree Lighting

Updated 25 November 2022: Pupils from the JGHS pipe band, wind ensemble and senior choir will be providing music for the Marchmont and Sciennes Christmas Tree Lighting on Saturday 3 December at 4.30 pm.

The gathering will start next to the Scotmid on Marchmont Crescent, where there will be community carols and mince pies, and then transfer to the German Speaking Church in Chalmers Crescent for mulled wine.

All are welcome to this community event.

Helpers needed

The Community Council are looking for volunteer helpers for the event.

Specifically they need help:

To set up the German Speaking Church hall in Chalmers Crescent from 3.30 pm
At the tree from 4.25 pm onwards, handing out songsheets etc
Back at the hall serving mulled wine to parents and soft drinks to kids; and clearing up afterwards (ending around 6 pm)

If you can help out in any way, please contact them directly:

Email the Community Council

‘Let’s Talk Scottish Education’ – Our National Discussion

27 October 2022: You may have seen the letter forwarded by the School about Our National Discussion on Scottish Education.

The National Discussion is a chance for everyone to share their hopes and ideas for the future of all aspects of Scottish education, from early years to options for school leavers.

Have your say

The National Discussion is being run by the Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (CoSLA) and there are many ways parents and carers can contribute, for example:

Complete the online survey

Our National Discussion survey

Send in your thoughts

E mail the National Discussion

Parental engagement charity Connect and the National Parent Forum of Scotland (NPFS) want to help families be part of the discussion too, and you can join their National Discussion Facebook Forum.

National Discussion Facebook Forum

Discussions with children and young people

The consultation leaders have also produced age-specific documents to help guide discussions with children, parents and carers at home:

Young children 3-7 years old

Children and young people 8-14 years old

Young adults 15 years and over

Consultation runs until 5 December 2022

You have until Monday 5 December 2022 to take part in the National Discussion and help create a vision for Scottish education for the next 20 years.

More information

Further information is available on the National Discussion website

National Discussion on Scottish Education

Free half-term activities for families in Edinburgh

14 October 2022: The City of Edinburgh Council 1 in 5 project, which seeks to raise awareness of child poverty across the city, has just published its 2nd newsletter.

In this edition there is information about free family activities happening through out October, including storytelling, bug hunting, and the Big Draw.

Read all the details in the newsletter:

1 in 5 newsletter, October 2022

About the newsletter

The 1 in 5 Newsletter supports the work of the Equity Board and Equity Network groups, and aims to:

Bring together information on services that education and lifelong learning services can link with to support families experiencing poverty.
Provide updates and reminders about welfare benefits and grants available to families, resources and staff CPD
Share case studies and top tips across schools and services of good practise in poverty prevention.

Training opportunity: Making work work

6 October 2022: Are you looking to return to work after a career break?

Making Work Work – for Women Returners is the Challenges Group’s women returners programme. It is a free online Skills Development Scotland-funded course for women returners looking to get back into paid work after career break.

Find out more and register to attend on the Challenges Group website

About The Programme

The programme seeks women in Scotland looking to step back into the workplace and who face difficulties in finding work that fits with all the commitments and fun of life following a career break (e.g. for maternity, caring, health issues / disability, redundancy, relocation or other reasons).

We are looking for women who have management experience or aspirations from across Scotland to take part in a peer-led skills refresher programme which will facilitate the confidence and networks essential to finding work commensurate with their skills, ambitions and potential.

Don’t worry if you have not had management experience – this will not exclude you from the programme. However, you need to be willing to learn about management and leadership skills – either for your next role or a future one.

Participants also get support with their job search, personal development and designing their (work)life blend.

Consultation on Local Police Plan

21 September 2022: Edinburgh Police Division are developing local policing priorities for 2023 to 2026. A forward looking Local Police Plan will be published in April 2023.

The views of the local community are fundamental to ensure their priorities align with local needs.

They are inviting the community to contribute to development of the Local Police Plan by completing the “Your Police 2022-2023” survey. They are keen to get as many opinions as possible, so please consider adding your input.

Your Police 2022-2023 – Police Scotland – Citizen Space

If you have further questions you can contact the South East Community Policing Team by email or visit their website:

Email Community Policing Team

South East Community Policing Team

Edinburgh EIS Local Elections Hustings

27 April 2022: In the run up to the local council elections, the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) will be hosting an opportunity to ask representatives from the main political parties about their priorities for education in Edinburgh.

Online Any Education Questions next Tuesday 3 May 2022 at 6.30 pm (via Zoom)

Please come along to show our politicians that schools and children matter!

Click here to register

Please Note:

All attendees will be given the opportunity to submit questions in advance, so that we can try to ensure that we cover the full range of concerns. The EIS will email those who register with more information about this, as well as sending them the zoom link etc
EIS are trying to secure BSL interpreters, but cannot guarantee that they will be able to have this in place. They aim to set up captioning. If there are other things they can do to make the meeting more accessible, please get in touch with then directly (via edinburghla@eis.org.uk).
*They have invited spokespersons from each of the parties represented at Holyrood/who are part of COSLA.

Supporting mental health and emotional well-being

These past months have been very challenging for many of us, and our children. The CAMHS-resources website has been created by an NHS professional in the Midlands Partnership Foundation Trust to make it easy for young people, parents, carers and professionals to access the wealth of helpful resources across the internet to support their mental health and emotional well-being needs.

You can access a range of downloadable self-help guides and information – some are aimed at adults but the ideas and suggestions in them can still be relevant for young people and parents.

CAMHS resources website

CAMHS downloads page