As the activities hub of CAFAG, the Whitfield Valley Centre is a unique project with a strong emphasis on partnership working within the community providing for the health and wellbeing of the local and wider populations and improving their life chances. The Centre is based in Fegg Hayes but serves the communities of Chell, Chell Heath and the wider area.
The Centre delivers a range of community activities and services to address the increasing needs latent within our community. It has a particular focus upon supporting isolated and vulnerable people, helping single parents, older people and disadvantaged members of the community facing issues such as low incomes, disability and social isolation.
Our main activities include the Community Gym, which currently enjoys an average of 650 visits per month, and associated exercise classes, a boot camp and walking groups, a Community Cafe offering affordable refreshments to the public five mornings a week, managed and run entirely by a team of dedicated volunteers and offering skills development to both able bodied and disabled people, a twice weekly Youth Club offering diverse experiences to young people, two Ofsted registered nurseries, a creche, an extensive volunteering programme, over 55s Luncheon Club, smoking cessation support and outreach work to a Sheltered Housing complex, schools and mental health organisations.
The only other established community facilities which currently exist within the area are churches and pubs which do not provide for a cross section of the community. This therefore leads to social isolation and does not offer opportunities for community cohesion. Coupled with the dearth of local volunteering and training opportunities this is having serious social and economic implications in the local area. The possibilities for local residents who have a poor academic record, or lack of confidence, or are unemployed, or want to boost their chances of returning to paid employment after raising families are clearly limited.
CAFAG recently commissioned an independent evaluation of the Centre. It shows that there is a significant level of demand for our services and activities within an area that experiences very high levels of deprivation. The continued loss of services from the area will do nothing to alleviate the persistently high levels of poor health and worklessness. The evaluation concluded that there will continue to be a sufficient demand for the Centre and its activities as services continue to contract.
CAFAG and its activities at the Whitfield Valley Centre aim to tackle the underpinning issues and problems that affect members of the local community. These include generational worklessness, lack of opportunities, self-esteem, educational under-achievement, anti-social behaviour, lack of local volunteering/’real life’ work placement opportunities for the unemployed, isolation and a lack of community cohesion.
As a charity CAFAG has a proven track record of successfully delivering services, projects and activities over the past 17 years through a variety of external funding bodies and contractors. Due to our experience, work ethic and staffing expertise we have been able to successfully deliver all projects funded through these sources and have at all times met the required outcomes and outputs.
