Living somewhere with a strong sense of community is very important for North Yorkshire residents; however, developing neighbourhoods that are resilient, cohesive and sustainable is not always easy. This collection of free online resources is designed to help and support communities, parishes, villages and neighbourhoods think about their own settings, encourage wider conversations and initiate social action.

Moving into a new community or neighbourhood where you don’t know people and are unsure of local services, traditions or support networks can be an intimidating prospect.

A welcome pack is a simple way of making new residents feel welcome and can help them settle in, with the added benefit of harnessing their enthusiasm and skills to enhance local activities.

This handy resource, comprising a guidebook and toolkit, brings together learning from a range of communities and provides a step-by-step guide to running an effective community engagement project. It outlines why community engagement is important and highlights some of the pitfalls to help you avoid them. Packed with ideas on different methods of consulting with the community, the toolkit includes links to a number of free templates as well as valuable hints and tips so that you don’t miss anything important.

What is social action and how can you make it work to make improvements and change in your community? Our toolkit will help you be inspired with practical tips, tools and resources for activities to help people get involved with local activities.

Many young people struggle with feeling lonely, particularly during the lockdown. Most find it difficult to talk about their feelings. If you work with young people, we’ve created a resource pack, downloadable posters and a flyer that you can use to kickstart a conversation about youth loneliness.

Loneliness in the workplace can affect employee mental health and productivity, and ultimately have a negative impact on the organisation as a whole.

With more people working from home, there are fewer opportunities for face-to-face contact with colleagues, leaving some people feeling more isolated and alone.

We’ve brought together some useful information and resources to highlight the importance of addressing loneliness and give some practical tips on tackling loneliness in the workplace.

Check your future loneliness risk level.

It’s a simple and quick online quiz to check your level of risk of being lonely in your later life.

An overview and checklist to help organisations as they work to improve people’s overall health and wellbeing, and help them with their local communities.

Community First Yorkshire are working with the ACRE Network to promote good safeguarding practice to village and community halls throughout England. We want to make sure that the voluntary management committees that run halls and community buildings in Yorkshire have the knowledge and confidence to provide a safe environment for all.

Our safeguarding guide for community buildings and village halls is on our Community Support North Yorkshire website.

Securing funding and planning for the future is vital.

We can  help you become ‘funding ready, find the right funds to apply and submit an application form. Take advantage of the wealth of resources in our Funding Toolkit to help you on your funding journey.

(The toolkit is hosted on our Community Support North Yorkshire website)

A guide to involving, celebrating and supporting volunteers.

If you’re thinking of involving volunteers in your organisation for the first time, or wanting to review your current volunteer management processes, this Volunteer Management Toolkit is for you.

From planning to involve volunteers to recruitment, supporting and developing your volunteers, developing policies and celebrating volunteer contributions, this toolkit will provide practical advice and resources.

Enrich your board with the right trustees.

You may be seeking to develop your board with new trustees, but many charities and community groups can find it a daunting process. Where do you start?

Our Trustee Recruitment Toolkit can walk you through the steps needed – from planning, advertising and interviews, to selection and induction, we’ve got useful tips and practical resources to help you.

(Our Trustee Recruitment Toolkit is hosted on our Community Support North Yorkshire website).

This toolkit will help anyone thinking of registering or converting their group to a CIO. Our easy to read step-by-step guide will navigate you through the process. There are links to external sites and other resources.

This toolkit brings together simple to understand and useful resources to help individuals, communities and charitable organisations take steps to reduce their environmental impact and tackle climate change at a local level.