Category: News

We are delighted to have welcomed back our JCS Wellbeing Hub to the Walton Community Care Centre.  On Tuesday 20 July, seven clients returned to the Centre after over 16 months.  Clients were welcomed by the JCS team, some members of the Board, a Representative from the Glasgow Jewish Representative Council, local MSP Jackson Carlaw and Rabbi Rubin.

 

After a lot of hard work behind the scenes including thorough risk assessment, deep cleaning, replacement of furniture and training to improve infection control, our clients were delighted to return to the Centre and be reunited with friends.  Clients took part in activities after a much needed catch up over coffee and cake.

 

Lynsey Allan, Head of Service for Community and Wellbeing said of the return to in person services, “It’s great to see our clients back at the JCS Wellbeing Hub after such a long break.  The team have worked tirelessly to ensure we can bring our clients back to our in-house service safely and have even recruited volunteer drivers to help them get to and from the JCS Wellbeing Hub as safely as possible.”

 

During the pandemic JCS provided welfare calls, meal deliveries, essential shopping, and Jewish Telegraph deliveries, improving wellbeing and helping people remain connected to their community and culture.

 

Jackson Carlaw MSP attended the reopening and said, “While a fantastic job has been done delivering home support over the past year, nothing compares to the sheer joy of meeting in person again.  It is a delight and pleasure to see.”

Jewish Care Scotland (JCS) group activities will resume from Tuesday 20 July at their Walton Community Care Centre in Giffnock. With COVID-19 restrictions easing across the country and many safeguarding and infection control precautions in place, the JCS Wellbeing Hub will return to the Walton Centre over a year since the service was paused.

Since March 2020, the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jewish Care Scotland were no longer able to open their day centre to elderly and vulnerable groups and instead began delivering social support to people in their own homes from July 2020.

The JCS Wellbeing Hub will operate from the Walton Centre on a Tuesday and Thursday morning from 10am-1pm. People currently supported by JCS will be invited to take part in activities like yoga, art or quizzes along with the opportunity to spend time with others playing cards, dominoes or simply chatting. They’ll also come together to enjoy a two-course lunch prepared by Gary, The Kosher Chef.

Julie Marshall, Chief Executive of Jewish Care Scotland, said, “We are delighted to be able to welcome the people we support back into the centre after so long. To ensure the safety of the attendees and our staff the centre and our offices will otherwise remain closed for the time being allowing us to take this huge step towards resuming one of our most popular services.”

During the pandemic JCS provided welfare calls, meal deliveries, essential shopping, and Jewish Telegraph deliveries, improving wellbeing and helping people remain connected to their community and culture. Lynsey Allan, Head of Service for Community and Wellbeing at JCS said, “The ability to spend this one-to-one time with the people that we support has grown relationships with our staff and allowed us to really get to know each individual well and assess their abilities, along with their interests. This has allowed us to involve the people we support in our plans to resume our in-house services”.

Behind the scenes we are carefully planning how to reintroduce our Wellbeing Hub and Day Care facilities as safely as possible. Reopening our Day Care for those who are most vulnerable is our initial goal, and the safety and wellbeing of everyone is our utmost priority.

In line with the Public Health Scotland guidelines, we’ve submitted plans to East Renfrewshire’s Health and Social Care Partnership and currently await approval to reopen before welcoming back our attendees.

We hope to share our reopening date with you very soon and we’re excited to welcome back all of our lovely visitors once approval has been given! Until then, we continue to provide our remote care services for those who need them.

If you’d like to find out more information about our reopening or current services, please get in touch with Lynsey (lynseya@jcarescot.org.uk) or Vicki (vickimc@jcarescot.org.uk).

Jewish Care Scotland will rename our popular Aviv Club as the JCS Wellbeing Hub, when it reopens.  Following feedback from the community, and a change to how the service operates, the decision was made to change the name to reflect the purpose and goals of the group.

 

In response to the community feedback, opinions were sought on what a suitable name for the group service would be. Discussions involved a range of people who are involved with the Scottish charity including clients, families, staff and Board members to ensure inclusivity. The JCS Wellbeing Hub was then put to those who use the service and their families for a final say.

 

Dr Richard Groden, Chair of JCS, said of the name change, “Due to the adaptations made to the services following COVID-19 restrictions, our clients and team saw this as the perfect opportunity for a fresh start.  The JCS Wellbeing Hub is much more reflective of the purpose of the group and its inclusivity.  We are delighted to have a new name confirmed in time for the reopening of our services in person.”

 

JCS Chief Executive, Julie Marshall, added, “Our clients who are part of our registered services are receiving more support now than ever.  That support is tailored to their needs and includes a mixture of support in the community and at the Walton Centre.  This level of care provision is here to stay, post COVID-19, and this new name change reflects that.  Only the name of our registered services is changing but it’s an exciting time for the organisation and the people we represent.”

 

The JCS Wellbeing Hub will operate from the Walton Centre on a Tuesday and Thursday morning from 10am-1pm, when ongoing COVID-19 restrictions allow it to reconvene.

Jewish Care Scotland (JCS) have recognised the hard work of their loyal volunteers by presenting them with a gift hamper as part of Volunteers Week 2021.  Volunteers support the charity in a number of ways, including providing shopping support, delivering meals, delivering copies of The Jewish Telegraph and helping people remain connected to their community and culture.

 

The Community and Welbeing Team at JCS delivered hampers directly to volunteers. Vicki McPhee, Team Leader said, “The work of our volunteers is invaluable in helping us to reach as many members of the community as we can.  Their time and effort are really appreciated by our team and the people who benefit.  These hampers are just a small token of our thanks.”

 

JCS volunteer Orli Schechter (pictured) said, “I’ve so enjoyed my time as a JCS volunteer since lockdown started. I love seeing the clients whilst also knowing I’m doing something to help.  So getting a gorgeous hamper was such a wonderful surprise and was the icing on the cake… such a lovely gesture, and really made my day!.”

 

JCS are currently looking for volunteers who can commit time weekly in a number of roles including volunteer bus drivers.  If you would like to find out more about volunteering you can contact Vicki McPhee by calling 0141 620 1800 or email vickimc@jcarescot.org.uk.

 

 

Jewish Care Scotland’s Thistle club members had their annual outing to Bonnyton Golf Club last Thursday.

The visit to Bonnyton teed off with a welcome from Richard Groden, JCS Chairman and previous Chairman of Bonnyton Golf Club, and also a visit from Bonnyton’s Club Captain Max Craig.

Louise Smith, the Day centre Manager at JCS said “the Thistle club outing to Bonnyton was great fun and a fantastic day was had by all. We are so grateful to Bonnyton Golf Club for welcoming us so warmly yet again and for allowing us to come every year and enjoy such a wonderful setting”

After lunch everyone enjoyed live musical entertainment – and many volunteers, staff and club members got up for a dance!

Bonnyton’s Honorary Treasurer Herbert Hepner was delighted to be there to welcome everyone when they arrived and said “Everyone at Bonnyton is delighted to support local charities when they can and it was our pleasure to be able to help JCS once more.  It was wonderful to see what a great time the Thistle club members were having!”

As many of you know we’ve been thinking about our future here at Jewish Care Scotland, which has led us to begin the process of developing a strategy which will outline how we meet the needs of the Jewish community, both in the short term and for many years to come. This work involved us commissioning the help of Thrive Consultancy to ascertain what you as the community felt about Jewish Care Scotland, what your wishes were and most importantly what you felt was important for us to consider in the future.

Since November 2018 Thrive have been consulting with and listening to members of the community from across Scotland, including those who use our services and their families, and gathering the key messages that have come from this work. The Board, together with Thrive are very grateful to everyone who offered their opinions and thoughts on Jewish Care Scotland and who took the time to attend workshops, events and one-to-one interviews.

The themes that came from this work were very welcomed and will be used to inform our future strategic direction. We learned that there is tremendous affection for Jewish Care Scotland and that people who received support really valued this. Comments made often indicated that Jewish Care Scotland was a lifeline proving help and advice in times of need and that it could provide a much-needed opportunity for connection and support. The spirit of the organisation was seen as a positive, especially noticeable in the extent to which members of the community support and help the organisation.

Your feedback however also highlighted some areas that we need to consider moving forward. It was mentioned that perhaps support for those living with poor mental health could be considered as well as an acknowledgement that possibly what Jewish Care Scotland currently offers, is not always appealing to younger age groups. There was however recognition that the organisation would struggle to be everything to everyone and that regardless of what people would like, this had to be on balance with ensuring the charity was financially stable in the future, especially in the face of current funding cuts and a move to individually paid for services.

It is therefore clear that we have some challenging and some exciting times ahead in thinking through our next steps and making plans for our future. This work however will be instrumental in ensuring that we fully explore and make decisions based on how we will provide excellent care and support to as many people as possible, in ways that have the greatest positive impact. Despite our challenges, a real strength of the consultation was that most people identified that what we have currently, is not necessarily all we need (or all you would want) for the future – which means we have a real opportunity to be creative and shape our futures together.

At the moment we are reviewing the input and feedback provided by Thrive and hope that once this has been fully digested, we can start to shape and share our thoughts for the future. We are keen that we continue our dialogue with our community and will talk a little bit more about this at our AGM.

I hope you have found this update useful. I would once again on behalf of the board and Julie Marshall, our Chief Executive Officer, like to thank you for your input so far in this process, for your continued support and for caring so much about the future of our amazing organisation.

Thank you

Richard Groden
Chair of the Board
Jewish Care Scotland

Don your kilt (if you’re feeling brave!) and your trainers to raise money for Jewish Care Scotland. We’d love you to walk the Kiltwalk for us- we’ll give you 50% off your registration fee and a JCS T-shirt!
There are three distances:
• The Mighty Stride – 23 miles
• The Big Stroll – 15 miles
• The Wee Wander – 6 miles

Last year in Glasgow over 10,000 walkers took part in the BIGGEST EVER Kiltwalk!
Please email helenaw@jcarescot.org.uk to receive your discount code before registering.

By registering using our discount code we’d ask you to please commit to raising a minimum sponsorship of £100. The Hunter Foundation are very generously topping up all fundraising by 40%!. This means that for every £1 you raise we receive £1.40!