Research published today shows volunteering can help to improve the health of people living with mental illness. An evaluation carried out by the Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, which is working in a partnership with Community Service Volunteers showed improvements in more than half the people taking part.
The research shows mental health service users themselves report improvements in both their mental and physical health and highlights how volunteering can break down social isolation. 

Education Maintenance Allowance, which is paid to young people to encourage them to stay in full-time education after 16, can also help to improve their behaviour both during and away from their studies, according to a study today. A report from the Learning and Skills Council shows that students and their parents have both reported changes.
EMA is paid directly to young people and has so far led to more than half a million young people staying in learning. 

By Ram Charan
This book explores how to deepen an organisation’s talent pool to solve the succession crisis. The author addresses the pressing problem of a shortfall of leaders prepared to face the complexity of today’s challenges. When so many organisations struggle to find successors for their top jobs, and when so many leaders rise to the top but fail shortly thereafter, it’s clear there’s something wrong with succession and leadership development practices. 

Concerns raised by the Commission for Rural Communities about the availability of affordable homes in country areas have brought about a change to the Housing and Regeneration Bill. The Commission feared the ability to sell shared ownership homes could make it even harder for people on low incomes to find homes in their local communities. 

Councils are being urged to put forward schemes to give local people control over community assets before the deadline next month. Fifty new pilots are expected to join the scheme when the first phase ends on February 15th but authorities are being warned the chance to be involved is fading fast.
The scheme was established to engage people and improve services by allowing councils to transfer assets such as disused schools, swimming pools and offices into community management and ownership. 

The framework will steer the development of partnership working in delivering health and well-being in the community. It provides for primary caretrusts, NHS trusts, NHS foundation trusts, local authorities and the third and independent sectors to work jointly to drive improved outcomes in health and social care for local areas. 

The Adventure Capital Fund is set to take over the management of the second phase of the Futurebuilders fund, which was set up to help organisations in the voluntary and charity sector to deliver public services. The announcement from the Cabinet Office means ACF will be responsible for investing an additional 65 million pounds of government funds and for managing existing investments of 150 million. 

A toolkit has been launched to help local authorities improve their marketing and communications and tackle the problem of people valuing their local council less as a whole than the individual services it delivers. The Improvement and Development Agency for local government has developed the ‘connecting with communities toolkit’ in partnership with Grant Riches Communication Consultants. 

Local charters or contracts have the potential to give local people a much greater say in the running of local services. Pilots have shown that local people are often best placed to spot problems and come up with ideas to solve them, whether the issue is anti-social behaviour, litter, better services for young people or improvements to the local park. 

The significant challenges for local government in 2008 were set out in a speech by Communities Minister Hazel Blears. The key issues are transferring power from Whitehall to the town hall and beyond and driving forward community contracts.
The new approach to regeneration with the Working Neighbourhoods Fund is designed to help councils to think creatively about how they might help places dogged by long-term worklessness and turn them around.