New Heights Project in Birmingham

Members of the parish of Christ the King, Kingstanding were committed to establishing a Community project that could serve the whole of the local community.

The Parish Priest approached Father Hudson’s Society initially, to be involved in the research of local needs in 2005 and in the early stages of forming the Management Committee. The Community Projects Manager for Father Hudson’s Society is a member of the Management Committee. Father Hudson’s Society agreed to be the employer of any staff whom the Project would eventually have working there.

Initially a part time worker was employed in 2006. She developed a thriving Carer and Toddler group, a Parent’s Forum and enabled parents to access the many training courses available locally. She has remained working in the Project, but from September 2007 was employed by and funded by the local school, Christ the King.

In late 2006 the Project obtained funding from the Lankelly Chase Foundation for a full time Community Development worker. She started in April 2007. Father Hudson’s Society employs her and provides line management support.

To achieve this, the vision has been, from the start, to have a new purpose built Centre. A small group has been working tirelessly on grant applications for a new Centre.  In the meanwhile in 2006 two rooms in a disused building were completely refurbished with the help of the Probation Service and external funding.

The Refurbished rooms
One of these is used by the Carer and Toddlers group, Alcoholics Anonymous, Alanon, a Bereavement group, the Irish Welfare Project. The other was used in 2006 throughout the week for an educational project working with school -excluded young people. In 2007 Learn Direct –Sunrise used it throughout the week as a part of their outreach to improve access to employment support for local people.

Brave step
In 2007 the parish took the risk of purchasing a shop nearby in order to create a Café /Meeting place where local people could access the many services that exist, but can be difficult to engage with. With the help of a grant from the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund a remarkable transformation took place and in October 2007 this was formally opened.

The Project has, from the start, always networked closely with statutory agencies and other voluntary organisations. Two of the offices in this new meeting place are leased by the Youth Inclusion Project team and the project Community Development worker is based in the third office.
A large group of volunteers was recruited and trained to run the Café and over fifteen local agencies use the meeting place to deliver advice and other support services.

The Future
New Heights became a registered Charity in September 2007.
The Management Committee still believes that a new Centre is required .Every resource they have developed so far has been fully utilised and this is set to continue .Applications for grant support for the new Centre continue to be submitted
The web address is http://www.new-heights.org.uk