Due to a major internal reorganisation, our administrative office will close at 12:30pm on Thursday 1^st March and will not reopen until Monday 5^th March at 9.30am.  During this time, our telephone lines will not be available and we may not have access to email.  We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Our drop-in advice services and appointments at outreach venues will operate as normal on Thursday 1^st March and Friday 2^nd March.  Please check www.covadvice.org.uk/advice for full details of our sessions.

Our administrative office will re-open as normal on Monday 5^th March.

We are celebrating after being awarded the Advice Quality Standard (AQS), a nationally recognised quality mark for organisations providing free, independent advice to members of the public.

We are delighted to have been awarded the AQS as it helps to show people across Coventry, as well as those funding our service, that we are working to the best possible professional standards.  Our team of staff and volunteers have worked very hard to achieve the AQS and our Trustee Board will be making sure that they maintain these high standards over the coming years.

The AQS is awarded by the national umbrella group, the Advice Services Alliance.  The ASA Director Lindsey Poole said: “The AQS is a tough benchmark to achieve, particularly in challenging times for the voluntary sector and our clients and we offer our congratulations to Coventry Independent Advice Service for so clearly making the grade.”

We will display the AQS logo proudly, joining a community of over 650 organisations across the country who hold the AQS.

If you’re still thinking about applying for our Caseworker vacancy, the application window closes at 2pm today!

Thanks to everyone who took a look, and to those of you who have applied so far. We will be in touch with shortlisted applicants later tomorrow.

Advice sessions at Spon Gate Children’s Centre (based in Spon Gate Primary School) will be back to normal from Friday 19th January 2018.  The boiler has now been fixed so the building is lovely and warm again!

The drop-in session (no appointment needed) starts at 9.30 am  and runs every Friday.

Details of all our advice sessions across the city can be found at www.covadvice.org.uk/advice

We reopen on Tuesday 2nd January with drop-in advice sessions at:

• Holbrooks Community Care Association (from 9:00am), and
• St Peters Centre, Hillfields (from 9:30am)

Our usual Tuesday session at Moat House Neighbourhood and Leisure Centre has unfortunately been cancelled due to staff availability. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Full details of all sessions running this week, and beyond, can be found at www.covadvice.org.uk/advice.

All the usual Foodbank Centres will be closed during Christmas week except:

• Wednesday 27th December, from 11.00 am until 1.00 pm, at St Oswald’s Foodbank, Jardine Crescent CV4 9NW
• Saturday 30th December, from 10.00 am until 12.00 noon, at Church of God of Prophecy, 23 Victoria Street CV1 5NA

Emergency boxes will be available at the four West Midlands fire stations over the Christmas week.  They are open 24 hours each day.  People in need of food can just turn up and ask for a food box.  The locations are:

• Binley Fire Station, Hipswell Highway
• Foleshill Fire Station, Foleshill Road
• Canley Fire Station, Fletchamstead Highway
• Temporary Coventry Fire Station, Foleshill Road (old Ambulance station near Halfords)

All our staff, volunteers and trustees would like to wish you a very happy Christmas period and all our best wishes for 2018.

Our advice service will be closed from 1pm on Friday 22nd December with most of our sessions reopening on Tuesday 2nd January.  For details of all our advice services in the new year, check our advice page.

We have been informed that the heating at Spon Gate School is broken and so we will be unable to are unable to offer our normal drop-in advice session this coming Friday (15th December).

There is an alternative advice session available this Friday, between 9.30 – 12 noon, at Stoke Library, The Kingsway, CV2 4EA.

Due to Christmas closures, our next session at Spon Gate School will now be on Friday 12th January 2018.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Due to the bad weather, we are unable to offer any of our normal advice sessions today. This is due to building closures and travel difficulties.

If you have an appointment to see one of our advisers today, please call us on 024 76521100.

We apologise for the inconvenience caused. Hopefully, normal service will be restored tomorrow.

In April 2017, The Trussell Trust reported that their network of 428 food banks gave out nearly a record number of 1.2 million three-day emergency food supplies.

Issues of hunger, poverty and injustice are at the forefront of debate right now.  One recent development is the Coventry Food Charter, which sets out a vision for what we can do about food poverty if we work together.  It recognises the need to deal with both emergency food crises and the development of a sustainable and secure food system, the centrality of the universal right to food and the aim of achieving food justice.

There will be a public launch of the Coventry Food Charter on Thursday 16 November 2017 between 5pm-7pm at St. Mary’s Guildhall.  The launch is free to attend but you must sign up on Eventbrite.

Also of interest is a recent report by Rachel Loopstra & Doireann Lalor, from Oxford University, that considers many of the issues around injustice and UK hunger.  The report, published jointly with the Trussell Trust, ‘Financial insecurity, food insecurity, and disability: the profile of people receiving emergency food assistance from The Trussell Trust Foodbank Network in Britain‘, is an essential read.