York homelessness services win gold standard award
City of York Council’s services for preventing and managing homelessness are in the country’s top three and have been given the gold service standard.
The award was confirmed by the national governing body this week and York is the third local authority in England to ever win it.
The National Practitioner Support Service (NPSS) – funded by the Department of Communities and Local Government – has confirmed that the council has achieved the standard required. The Gold Standard can only be achieved by demonstrating that the service has a focus on early intervention and prevention of homelessness at its core.
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York #travelwithtots rides off with national award
The campaign which was run in partnership with Sustrans targeted parents and carers of pre-school children in mainly harder to reach areas. Over 600 carers and children took part in sessions over the course of the project. 95 per cent of carers who took part had not tried cycling with their tots before with 75 per cent now cycling more often thanks to the project.
#travelwithtots uses targeted social media messages and confidence-building activities to address safety concerns, lack of awareness of equipment and lack of confidence among participants.
The campaign has three main sections, Try Cycling sessions, bike loans and additional community support. At each Try Cycling session, participants were offered flexible support with free bike and equipment try outs, safety advice and cycle confidence training. Participants were also offered bike loans in partnership with Giant York and signposted to York’s Sky Ride Local and Ride Social programmes.
Modeshift are a not-for-profit organisation which promotes best practice in sustainable travel delivery. The York Bike Belles #travelwithtots project was funded by the Department for Transport’s Local Sustainable Transport Fund. (more…)
Electric bus award nomination for York service
City of York Council along with partners First York and Optare have been shortlisted for an award at the prestigious UK Bus Awards.The nomination is for the Environment category and notes the work that the council, First York and Optare have completed by creating and running a fully electric Park&Ride service from the newly built site at Poppleton, which was opened in June 2014.
Energise commended by leading quality scheme
Energise has passed a tough assessment from Sport England’s leading national quality scheme, Quest, in which it scored Excellent.
Quest is the most well known improvement programme within the leisure industry and its rigorous assessments challenge even the very best leisure centres in the UK.
In order to achieve Quest Plus, Energise went through a two year process, with a mystery visit and a two day assessment in the first year, and a second mystery visit and one day assessment in the second year.
The mystery visit in year two is particularly challenging as the mystery visitor does not work in the leisure industry.