Celebrating our new charitable status

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It’s ‘all systems go’ for the My Home Life Essex Community Association now that we’ve been awarded charitable status by the Charity Commission.

This acknowledgement of what we are doing to improve the quality of life for those living in residential care homes fires our passion to see older people across Essex living life to the full, according to their wishes and as part of their local community.

For the past five years we’ve been supporting older people and their families as they make the often difficult choices about a move into residential care. Beyond this we support the wider My Home Life Essex movement that is working with care home managers to build on good practice to inspire excellent care and life experiences for their residents. Our key aim is to encourage care homes and their communities to connect to create inclusive and enriched neighbourhoods that benefit everyone and we’re currently running a successful Community Visitors project in the Colchester area.

Our new charitable status boosts our capacity to make partnerships with other charities to develop our reach into Essex communities. We now have the option to apply, or tender, to provide services and undertake projects with the ability to bid for funds; this is a plus for us since many grant making bodies only accept applications from registered charities.

We voluntarily submitted ourselves to the rigorous and demanding process for registration and now comply with charity law which relates to the way we manage our affairs and the activities we undertake, as well as with company law. We have demonstrated that we are a non-profit making organisation working for the public benefit and restricting our operations and activities to those which are defined as charitable.

Essex residents can be confident that we are an outward looking and inclusive organisation that seeks to embrace the experiences, talents and warmth of the people in this great county. We want more of them to join us by engaging with their local care home and changing lives. If you live in Essex and would like to find out more please contact us.