A number of local organisations have announced that they will be suspending services from today in an attempt to follow Government advice to limit non-essential human contact.
Here is a summary of the different announcements made by local groups:
- Prospect Community Housing
- WHALE Arts
- Edible Estates
- The Health Agency
- SCOREscotland
- Wester Hailes Library
- The Dove Centre
- Space & Broomhouse Hub
- Health All Round
- St David’s Church
- Murrayburn and Hailesland Community Park Association
- The Bridge Cafe
- Odeon Cinemas
- CHAI
- Wester Hailes Holy Trinity Church
Prospect Community Housing
Prospect’s office is now closed to the public from 17 March 2020.
However, our staff will be answering phone calls and responding to texts, emails and letters.
You can still get in touch with us on 0131 458 5480, by text 07860 047548 or email enquiries@prospectch.org.uk. We will continue to provide our repairs service focussing on emergency and urgent routine repairs.
If you have concerns about paying your rent, please contact us, we’re here to help.
If you, or any member of your household, have symptoms of a new persistent cough or a high temperature, you must self-isolate for a period of 14 days. Please let us know if you are self-isolating.
WHALE Arts Agency
The WHALE Arts Centre will be suspending regular activities and sessions from today 17 March 2020.
The Foodness Community Meal will instead be converting to the Community Takeaway providing packed lunches for people.
From tomorrow (Wednesday 18 th March) we will be adapting our services to temporarily limit face-to-face contact. Activities will not take part in the WHALE Arts building. The only services that will take part will be food provision – please see more details below.
WHALE Arts groups will be cancelled until Monday 4th May. We will be reviewing this policy as new guidance is made available.
We will revisit this towards the end of April based on up to date Scottish Government guidance and make a decision about the continuation of activities into May and beyond. We will communicate any changes clearly with all participants, artists, partners and funders.
The WHALE Arts groups that are cancelled until 4th May are:
Stitch n Time
smARTcraft
Men’s Making
Let’s Create
Street Arts
Let’s Dance
Play Sense Create
Film Club
smARTies
NuStart
Mums into Business
Wester Hailes Connects Digital Skills Drop-ins
Members Breakfasts
Community Gardening
As our building will not be open our programmes delivered with partners will also be postponed:
Room for Art – with Art in Healthcare
Fork in the Road – Edinburgh Tool Library
Expecting Something – with Starcatchers
Open Book
Indian dance – Theiya Arts
Edinburgh Art Festival – art trips and schools groups
Activities related to our Creative Placemaking project will also be postponed between 18 March – 4 May.
There will be a separate communication about this.
Our Easter Holiday Programme will also be cancelled, as will our Puppet Animation Festival shows and workshops.
Together with our team of freelance artists we will be developing a range of creative tutorials, fun ideas and exercise challenges for people of all ages to do at home. We will be disseminating these via our website, social media, email and by post. We are also looking at making up art material packs for people to collect, or which we may post out to people. And we are also thinking of some creative and fun ways to keep people connected over the next few weeks, using a range of platforms, but taking into consideration that many of our participants are not digitally connected.
The Foodness Community Meal will instead be converting to the Community Takeaway providing packed lunches for people.
Edible Estates
We’ve currently cancelled all sessions and are figuring out this afternoon what kind of response we can provide to the communities in Wester Hailes.
We’re of the opinion we should be doing all we can to help folk, working collaboratively with whatever resources anyone can muster locally to ensure no-one goes hungry, without help or left on their own. More soon once we’ve figured out a few things but we are up for it
The Health Agency
The Health Agency are postponing ALL Health Agency appointments and services, including Westerhaven, effective immediately (Tuesday 17 March 2020).
We are working on ways to best support you during this time and willprovide regular updates through our Facebook page and on our website. If you already receive counselling or CBT, we’ll be contacting you sepperately to discuss on-going support.
You can contact us by phone on 0131 453 9400 if you need any further information.
SCOREscotland
Following the daily announcements from the Scottish Government, Westminster as well as information and advice from the NHS, it is now clear we need to make significant changes to the way in which SCOREscotland operates in the coming weeks and months.
We are continuing to closely monitor the situation to ensure we are in the best position to uphold our duty of care to SCOREscotland staff, Board of Directors, Members, clients and partners. We are committed to taking an informed and proportionate response, and we will keep you informed of any changes to the way we plan to operate as and when necessary.
SCOREscotland will, therefore, temporarily be stopping our face-to-face services, which include group work activities and workshops.
Face-to-face group work sessions
From Thursday 19th of March, all our groups will be on hold for the foreseeable future.
We will be reviewing this policy as new guidance is made available. However, we will be offering alternative ways of contact with our clients and communities through digital methods and our community fridge service (more info below).
We will be temporarily closing the:
- Knots and Crosses Children’s Club (KCCC)
- Knots and Crosses Youth Club (KCYC)
- ‘Let’s Cook Together’- cooking group
- Sewing groups (adults and children)
- Wester Hailes Connects Project
- Local CommUNITY Voices Project
However, the SCOREscotland team will be working hard, to create opportunities for digital sessions, activities and resources for children and young people, community members and families who access our services. We have chosen this option, in order to keep the children, community members, staff and facilitators safe. As Covid-19 poses a serious risk to vulnerable members of our society, we aim to reduce that risk.
For that reason, our face-to-face Easter Holiday Programmes will also be cancelled.
Food Provision
Community Fridge
Access to the Community Fridge will continue on a limited basis on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 10am -1pm.
To protect ourselves and other users, we ask that nobody enters the WHALE building which will be closed to the public. Please call our office on 01314422341 or 07496190916 and a member of the team will come to serve you.
Please take note of the notice board outside the front door displaying what is in the fridge and make your selection before phoning.
Wester Hailes Library
All Edinburgh Libraries are now closed until further notice following latest guidance regarding the #coronavirus #covid_19 outbreak. . There will be no hire charges or fines applied for items.
Services including eBooks, audiobooks, magazines and newspapers are available online 24/7.
For all the information you need to get started, please visit https://yourlibrary.edinburgh.gov.uk
If you need help or support with accessing this please contact Wester Hailes library on Facebook and they will do their best to answer you.
Any updates on the situation as it pertains to us will be made on Facebook.
Stay safe everyone.
The Dove Centre
The Dove Centre has suspended all service users activities, classes and meals until further notice. They will be contacting their service users and hope to provide meals via delivery, as well as providing activities for people to do at home and an essentials shopping service.
Space and Broomhouse Hub
The current changes to services are:
Café at the Hub: open for take away service only, 8.30am – 2pm every day, breakfast & lunch. Local people are making use of this to bring hot food to older relatives, for example, to enable them to stay at home.
Groups: We are following advice and guidance from best practice, and therefore our decision is to move all our core services to telephone and/or digital services for the next 2 weeks and will review again. These are:
Café Training
Beacon Club
Adult Carers
Young Carers
Youth Befriending
Vintage Vibes
Sista Space
Book Bug
English Lessons
Well Being Space
Drop-in Youth Cafe
Your contact at the project will be in touch with you and meanwhile if any questions, call us directly on 0131 455 7731.
Our outside catering is still operational and we can cater for small groups for essential meetings.
We aim to be able to coordinate initiatives to help the local community as needs emerge, e.g. for older people or for families, and if you want to volunteer for this, we will be putting up a link shortly for that. You can leave your details for now, by emailing office@spacescot.org.
Thank you for your understanding at this time.
Health All Round
Health All Round has been obliged to cancel all groups and face to face services in accordance with government social distancing guidelines.
Our staff will be working from home but we will be available during drop-in times for telephone support/advice. We are also working with local partners to try and ensure that older and more vulnerable members of our community have food and essential supplies during this very challenging time.
St David’s Church
All events and at St David’s are cancelled for the forseeable future.
This includes Suday morning worship and Easter services. We will continue to take care of our vulnerable members and stay in touch via phone, email and message.
Please feel free to message the Church page or email the minister for more information: MMair@churchofscotland.org.uk
Murrayburn and Hailesland Community Park Association
Due to the current pandemic, we are having to postpone our play sessions for the time being.
Our priority is to keep everyone safe.
We will miss all the kids and we will be back when it is safe for us to do so.
The Bridge Cafe
After considering the latest advice from the UK government, we have made the difficult decision to close the café until further notice.
We apologise for the disruption and although unsure of the advice in the coming weeks, we sincerely hope to be open again as soon as possible.
Watch this space and stay healthy.
Odeon Cinemas
Following government guidelines ODEON cinemas are closed until further notice. If you have pre-booked tickets online, these will be refunded automatically. For any specific questions, please contact our Guest Services Centre by clicking here. We look forward to welcoming you back soon.
CHAI
CHAI’s main office at Riverside House on Gorgie Road remains open with a reduced staff, with most staff now Working from Home but continuing to provide advice by telephone. To book a telephone appointment call 0131 442 2100.
Wester Hailes Holy Trinity Church
All groups will be suspended from today (18th March 2020) as instructed by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. You may think that as people of faith, why should anything stop us meeting together if we so wish? I must confess that was my first thought, but in this particular case I think it is our Christian duty to keep physical social contact to a minimum. This is because, in the case of this virus, exercising our freedom to meet could have serious consequences on the life and health of some of the most vulnerable in our church and wider community.
Food poverty is a growing concern. We will try and keep the food bank open as long as feasibly possible. We are also in discussions with the government agencies as to how we can help the most vulnerable children in our community keep from going hungry at this time. If this is an area you would like to help in, let us know, as a number of opportunities may arise in the coming weeks. Please call the office or manse if you need someone to chat to, need something brought to you, or someone to pray with you over the phone.
The Church will be live-streaming their Sunday Morning Worship at 10.30am on their Facebook page.
If you know of any other closures or if you have more up to date information please let us know at digitalsentinel@whalearts.co.uk and we can update the list.
