The Community spirit we have seen across West Devon and South Hams has been truly inspiring. The surge in volunteers arranging in both formal groups and also supporting neighbours informally is exactly the response we would expect from our dedicated residents.
The Council itself, whilst maintaining vital services, has been working out the ways in which we can support you. We wanted to write to you to let you know our progress so far.
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- We have been mobilising the local response to shielding the 1.5m most vulnerable, nationally, with the delivery of emergency food parcels
- We have been responding to requests from vulnerable people who need access to services.
- The CVS has been commissioned by Devon County Council to support voluntary groups develop good practices and offer resources on safeguarding, telephone befriending, funding information and support to the volunteers themselves. CVS South Hams and CVS West Devon
- We have mapped all of the support groups operating in our area and been able to refer people requiring services directly to the people who can help most. Click on the links below.
- We have set up an inbox to deal with any queries in the local community communitycoordination.covid19@swdevon.gov.uk
- We have produced a ‘good practice’ booklet which may offer you some guidance which is available from our website.
 
We want to continue our efforts and support you in any way that we can. Based on feedback we’ve already received we are in the process of setting up a short-term emergency fund to help individuals who may not be self-isolating but because of their drastic reduction in income, and the difficulties they may experience getting through to the DWP to claim universal credit, need help now.
We aim to help out with a few days food and/or electric/gas key meter payments.
We would welcome your thoughts on how else we can support your work, for example;
- Do you require assistance with delivery of food or prescriptions?
- Are there any barriers to you being able to support people that we may be able to jointly overcome?
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We appreciate we may not have all the answers in these rapidly changing circumstance, but we are keen to work with you and not to duplicate your efforts, ensuring that everyone gets the help they need.
Thank you for responding to the needs of your local community, please respond either directly to ourselves or through communitycoordination.covid19@swdevon.gov.uk
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