On 20^th September, the Momentum team hosted the first in-person meeting of the Voluntary Sector Forum for Children, Young People and Families since early March 2020! We reminisced about how, at the last in-person meeting, we were all talking about this new “coronavirus” thing and whether it would affect our organisations. Little did we know…

The September meeting was a great opportunity to re-connect with people we had only seen via a screen for two and a half years, and to meet Voluntary Sector Forum members who have recently joined. We had representation from across the voluntary sector, from regional charities like Break and Ormiston Families to a trustee from a village pre-school, and we heard updates from partners at Children’s Services and the Norfolk Safeguarding Children Partnership. After a networking break with excellent cakes and pastries from The Feed, we held some table discussions using Mentimeter to get a sense of what issues are facing Forum members at the moment, such as difficulty with recruitment and inflation increases affecting how far their funding stretches, and what they would like to see on the agenda for future Forum meetings.

The Voluntary Sector Forum (Children & Young People) holds four meetings a year in March, July, September and December either online or in person. The format includes:

• guest speakers (often from other sectors) addressing key current issues
• reports back from multi-sector meetings
• networking time

The next meeting is scheduled for 14th December 2022. Agendas and previous minutes are sent to all members on the mailing list a couple of weeks beforehand. As meetings are held in person as well as online, please check with forum@momentumnorfolk.org.uk for more details.