With this year's action-focused theme, Dying Matters aims to encourage the nation to take five crucial actions to be ready for the end of life.

Be ready for it: five things you can do

1. Make a will
2. Record your funeral wishes
3. Plan your future care and support
4. Register as an organ donor
5. Tell your loved ones your wishes

Awareness Week 2012 was a huge success, with extensive media coverage and awareness-raising activities and events by Dying Matters and our members reaching more than 170,000 people across the country. 

We really want to hear from you, our members, about your activities for Awareness Week 2013. Whatever your event, large or small, we can provide support and resources, and help you get the word out via our newsletters, e-news, Twitter and Facebook - so please let us know what you are doing. Email info@dyingmatters.org or call 08000 21 44 66.

This free workshop is an opportunity to review the changes around Health Reform and its implications for the voluntary and community sector and the commissioning of services for children, young people and families.

The session will cover the following: 

• An overview of the changes in health structures and health commissioning 

• An opportunity to look at both barriers and opportunities for organisations wishing to engage with the new health structures 

• Review how your organisation’s services map against health priorities and what evidence base means within in a health context

• Review how you can engage more effectively with health in the future

More info

Maximising Social Value, Free Learning Events for the Public Sector
1st May, Birmingham
2nd May, London
9th May, Newcastle
10th May, Manchester
30th May, Leeds

The Social Value Act places new legal obligations on those commissioning and procuring public services. Maximising social value is not a new concept, but experience and resources are limited if you are trying to implement this in your area. NAVCA and the LGA are working together to support you.

NAVCA, in collaboration with the LGA, are holding Social Value events in London, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle throughout May.

These events are not chalk and talk information sessions, but the opportunity to get together and share issues and learning with those in the same position as you. Therefore, to maximise the value of these events, they are aimed at local government, CCG and housing association staff who are involved in the generation of social value in local commissioning.

What delegates will gain from attending:

• Learn from those who are implementing the Social Value Act in other areas, across local government and health and gain valuable contacts
• The opportunity to debate different approaches and explore possibilities
• The opportunity to explore legal considerations with Mark Cook and Gayle Monk of Anthony Collins Solicitors who hold extensive experience in sustainable procurement and have been at the forefront of bringing legal clarity in this area
• Access to resources developed following the events sharing good practice and current thinking

 What participants should bring to the day:

• A knowledge of how social value is being considered or implemented in your organisation
• A willingness to imagine the aims and possibilities of social value and learn from other participants

More info

Volunteers’ Week is an annual celebration of the fantastic contribution millions of volunteers make across the UK – and it’s taking place from the 1-7 June 2013.

Isn’t it time to say thank you to the UK’s volunteers?

This year’s Volunteers’ Week focuses on saying ‘Thank You’ to the millions of volunteers who regularly contribute to society, and to recognise the way that organisations celebrate the work of volunteers across the UK.

For more information and to get involved, visit Volunteer’s Week.

Carers Week is a UK-wide annual awareness campaign. Its aim is to improve the lives of carers and the people they care for. It does this by:

• Raising the profile of the role of caring in the national, regional and local media and encouraging groups and organisations to take part and organise events and activities.
• Helping the public identify themselves as carers and access the support, advice and information they need.
• Celebrating and recognise the contribution the UK’s 6.4 million carers make to the people they care for and their communities.
• Highlighting the challenges of caring and campaigning for sustainable funding for services and support for carers and the people they care for.

This year the theme for Carers Week is Prepared to Care? Every day at least 6,000 people start caring. Becoming a carer can impact significantly on a person’s life – it takes time, energy, can leave you isolated and can be costly.

Prepared to Care? – the 2013 Carers Week campaign –will focus on how the UK’s current carer population is coping, how effectively Government is supporting the growing numbers of carers, and whether the wider population is prepared for future caring responsibilities.

Through Prepared to Care? Carers Week will highlight the impact of caring on daily life and, with an ageing population and higher incidence of disability and serious illness, encourage the public to think whether they could manage a caring role.

Prepared to Care? will also help those already caring to make sure they are accessing all the practical and emotional support they need to care safely and look after themselves.

For more information on Carers Week, please click here.

Men's Health Week 2013: You only live once so talk to someone
10th - 16th June

Three in four people who kill themselves are men.

Led by the Men's Health Forum, this year's Men's Health Week runs from the 10th to 16th June and aims to tackle stigma in men’s mental health and promote mental well-being and help-seeking in men.

During the Week, the MHF will launch new services to enable men to access health advice and new publications to help health providers reach men. This follows the MHF's publication of the first guidelines on addressing the mental health needs of men and boys and our commitment to expanding and improving our services for men.

Why mental well-being?

• Despite men and women experiencing mental health problems in roughly equal numbers, men are much less likely to be diagnosed and treated for it and the consequences of this can be fatal – the MHF has long highlighted that 75% of all suicides are by men and that  73% of people who go missing are men.
• The Health & Social Care Information Centre 2009 household survey found that about 2.7 million men in England currently have a mental health problem like depression, anxiety or stress.
• Mind research has found that 37% of men are feeling worried or low with the top three concerns being job security, work and money.
• 33% of men are drinking at a potentially harmful level.

We are still assessing funding for free materials and the pricing for other resources, register to ensure you are the first to know what we have available. The more who register the more likely we will be able to offer free resources!

More info

This course draws on NCVO’s cutting edge thinking that has been developed from our strategy work with a range of charities over many years, to ensure that you keep your beneficiaries or cause at the heart of your future.

Day 1 is an introduction to strategy giving a theoretical focus.

Day 2 helps you put your learning into practice by making a meaningful strategy.

By the end of the two days, you will be able to:

• Identify what good strategy process involves
• Develop thinking about what strategy includes
• Participate in using  tools to create an effective strategy
• Design ideas about your organisation’s strategy process to take away
• Apply with confidence what you learn within your own organisation.

More info

Small Charity Week 2013 - 17th - 22nd June

Small Charity Week is a campaign which was first established by the Foundation for Social Improvement (FSI) in 2010 to celebrate and raise the profile of the small charity sector.

The week is organised as a series of activities and initiatives to support and raise awareness of the hundreds and thousands of small charities that, every day, make a huge difference to vulnerable communities right across the UK and the rest of the world.

The objectives of Small Charity Week are to:

• Celebrate the contribution that small charities make to communities throughout the UK and across the world
• Improve the knowledge, representation and sustainability of small charities
• Highlight the work of the small charity sector to the broadest possible audience
• Encourage public giving
• Work with the small charity sector to develop political engagement at a national and local level

More info

Raising Standards Of Compassion, Dignity and Safety

4th July; The Clarendon Suites, Birmingham

For more information and to book, please visit Public Service Events.