February 2017

Help Through Crisis Project Briefing

What is Help through Crisis?

Citizens Advice Stroud and Cotswold Districts (CA-SCD) has been awarded a £500,000 grant from the Big Lottery Fund’s Help through Crisis (HTC) Programme.

HTC is a 5-year programme which aims to improve the prospects of people currently living in crisis or who are at risk of crisis as a result of hardship. See for more information about the programme.

The project in the Stroud and Cotswold Districts will be led by CA-SCD and will focus on supporting people to overcome barriers they face in accessing the services they need.

A partnership of local charities will work together to provide immediate support such as food parcels, or transport to attend a vital court hearing, and to then work with people to address the underlying cause of their situation through advocacy and advice on issues such as family breakdown, health problems, homelessness or debt to try to prevent them getting into crisis again in the future.

What will the project achieve?

The four outcomes of the project will be:

1People who have experienced hardship crisis are better able to improve their circumstances.

2People who are at high risk of experiencing hardship crisis are better able to plan for the future.

3Organisations are better able to support people to effectively tackle hardship due to sharing learning and evidence.

4Those experiencing, or who are at high risk of experiencing, hardship crisis have a stronger, more collective, voice, to better shape response to their issues.

Who are the funded partners?

Four organisations, including ca-scd are currently funded Project Delivery Partners ie. grant funding has been allocated out of the total project budget for delivery of a specific aspect of the project. These partners, and their roles, are as follows:

Citizens Advice / Increase access to advice services in North Cotswolds (funding will support a new Session Superviser post in the Cotswolds)
Increase access to benefits advice through outreach & home visits (funding will support a specialist Benefits Caseworker)
Hold budget for spot purchasing or emergency transport to transport clients between crisis services eg. To court, Job Centre etc.
Stroud Beresford Group / Provide immediate support and practical items to families experiencing domestic abuse eg. Nappies, toiletries, mobile phones when unable to acquire quickly from other sources; preventative support through peer involvement, education and one t0 one advice,
Glos Credit Union / Develop online and mobile access to credit union services across Stroud and Cotswold Districts (capital funding will pay for new software to support online banking)
Provide financial capability education to raise profile and increase use of credit union
GL11 Community Hub / Preventative work to increase the skills and confidence of people using the community centre in managing their money and preventing future crises; peer support and involvement of people with “lived experience” of hardship crisis in the project.

Which other organisations are involved in the Partnership?

Fiveother organisations are Consortium Partners who are committed to contributing to delivering the outcomes of the project and who are funded to deliver specific activities as the project progresses:

The Marah Trust / Signposting vulnerable people into advice and other crisis services
GRCC Village Agents / Identifying vulnerable older people and signposting into advice and other crisis services
Home visits to vulnerable older people
Cotswold Friends
P3 / Identifying vulnerable people and signposting into advice and other crisis services.
Providing ongoing support to people who have been helped through a crisis.
The Churn Project, Cirencester / Identifying vulnerable families to signpost into advice and crisis services
Hosting new, preventative support and skills services within their community venue
Client engagement / feedback activities
Foodbanks: Stroud, Cirencester, North Cotswolds / Identifying vulnerable families to signpost into advice services
Delivery of emergency food parcels to households who cannot get to the outlet points to collect them due to lack of transport, disability etc.
Community Connexions / Emergency transport to transport people between crisis services eg. to court, to collect food parcel

How can other organisations get involved?

We also hope to engage a much wider group of stakeholder organisations in this project through the Money Forums that are facilitated by ca-scd in the Stroud and Cotswold Districts. Through these forums, other voluntary organisations and public bodies will be kept informed of the work and offered opportunities to get involved.

For example, organisations such as P3 are an essential source of support for the kind of people this project will work with and all partners have strong referral links with P3 already.

An emergency items budget is available for any organisation to access for its clients if funds are needed to provide emergency items to resolve an immediate hardship crisis. This is mainly being used for: emergency transport (see above) and fuel card top-ups but is flexible so has also been used, for example, to pay for a replacement ID that a homeless person needed in order to make a Benefits claim. Authorisation is required from Citizens Advice to access this fund: call our Freephone helpline on 0808 800 0510/1 and select the Professional Line option to discuss.

There will be a strong emphasis on learning and evaluation and sharing good practice during this project and the Partnership will be supported in this by an independent consultant, Rachel Hankins of R Z Hankins Consultancy.

For more information about the project contact:

Sally Pickering

01453 758252 Ext 201 (ex-directory number – do not give to clients)