This project was supported by Suffolk Community Restart.
The Mix is a leading Suffolk destination in providing services for young people aged 11 to 24. Their aim is to build young people’s confidence, skills and experience through dedicated staff and volunteers alike.
To read how The Mix faced the challenge of Covid, either see the image below or scroll to read a full-text version.
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Full text version:
How has Covid affected your organisation?
We try to be open and welcoming, and the use of masks obviously hides that first initial smile which we like to use to welcome our young people, staff and customers alike. We also had to close the building during lockdown including our café, Cabbages and Kings, which provides funding for our youth work through sales. Our young people were unable to physically attend our services; however, we transferred as many over to digital support as possible.
How did you adjust during the pandemic?
During lockdown, and with our building closed to our young people and services, we were approached by the Suffolk GP Federation about the possibility of our building being used as a Vaccine Clinic.
During late December 2020 and early January 2021, our ground floor was transformed in to a 25-bay clinic, and running from late January to early June 2021 the collabaration between The Mix and the GP Federation successfully issued 30,870 doses over 103 clinic days. There were 867 shifts, helped and supported by 111 volunteers and 72 staff!
Have you used the Suffolk Community Restart programme, and if so, what support have you received?
We received funding from the Re-Start Programme to improve the safety of our building for both our customers and our staff team. The main part was to advance our reception area by installing a full-sized curved Perspex screen and reception door. It has also enabled us to purchase wall mounted hand sanitiser dispensers to install at key points around our building and 3-sided holders to display information in our meeting rooms which can be wiped down and eliminate ‘one use’ printing.
You can find out more about Suffolk Community Restart here.