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Immediate Release: 2 February 2010
Families with young children who are struggling to make ends meet are to receive personalised help to find grants and benefits available to them, thanks to a new project launched today.
Turn2us, Home-Start and the Child Poverty Action Group have teamed up to deliver a new service to help families in need claim the money available to them.
Turn2us helps people understand the often complex world of benefits and grants through its website and helpline. Between 2007-2008 £16.8 billion of welfare benefits went unclaimed and at present there are over 3,500 charitable funds listed on the Turn2us website.
Now, thanks to funding from the Department for Children Schools and Families, Home-Start volunteers are to be trained to offer this personalised support to the families they visit.
Alison Taylor, Director of Turn2us, said: “Families are really feeling the pinch at the moment and for many every penny counts. By teaming up with Home-Start and the Child Poverty Action Group we are able to ensure that families in need are receiving a helping hand to access the benefits and grants they are entitled to.”
Home-Start volunteers, who are all parents themselves, already offer emotional and practical support to families with at least one child under the age of five. Now, 1,100 of them across England will use the Turn2us e-learning resource and 70 will attend additional workshops as part of the ‘Maximising Income for Families’ pilot project.
Kay Bews, Chief Executive of Home-Start UK, said: “13 million people live below the poverty line in the UK and Home-Start volunteers often find that the families they visit are weighed down by money worries and do not know where to turn for help. This pilot project will give some of our volunteers in England high quality training and the tools to help the families they support.”
It is hoped the volunteers will reach 15,000 families in financial need by the end of the pilot project in March 2011, helping them to find out about welfare benefits, tax credits, grants and other financial support. The volunteers will be able to offer practical support; be it with using the Turn2us Benefits Checker and Grants Search, finding the documents needed to complete the searches for funds, or even keeping children occupied while their parents visit Turn2us or fill out benefit or grant application forms.
Imran Hussain, Head of Policy, Rights and Advocacy at the Child Poverty Action Group said: “By offering access to welfare benefits and grants in one comprehensive service, Turn2us can be used to great effect by Home-Start volunteers and families, to help more families get the help they need.”
By summer 2011 Home-Start will decide on whether to extend the training to all 16,000 of its volunteers across the UK.
For more information visit www.turn2us.org.uk, www.home-start.org.uk and www.cpag.org.uk.
For information, photographs and interviews, please contact:
Laura Johnston, Press Officer. Telephone: 020 8834 9260. Laura.johnston@elizabethfinn.org.uk. Hythe House, 200 Shepherds Bush Road, London, W6 7NL.
Notes to Editors:
About Turn2us
Turn2us helps people in financial need access the money available to them – from welfare benefits, grants and other financial help – through its comprehensive website (www.turn2us.org.uk) and freephone helpline.
- Turn2us services are free, confidential and accessible, enabling people in financial need to access welfare benefits and charitable grants information quickly and easily – all in one place.
- The Turn2us website contains a number of accessible, easy-to-use, tools, such as a benefits checker, grants search and Find an Adviser tool.
- Turn2us is part of the Elizabeth Finn Care charity.
- Turn2us helps grant-giving charities reach people in need even more effectively by creating a single access point to information on charitable funds.
- Around 13.5 million people in the UK live below the poverty line, including four million children, despite the fact that £16.8 billion of welfare benefits went unclaimed from 2007-2008 (source: DWP and HMRC) and thousands of grant-giving charities exist that give grants to people in financial need.
Home-Start is the UK’s leading family support charity. Home-Start recruits and trains volunteers to support parents with at least one child under the age of five. Its home visiting work is unique in the UK. The charity was set up in 1973 and now has 336 Home-Starts across the UK supporting nearly 34,000 families and over 71,000 children each year. Almost 16,000 volunteers visit families in their own homes – parents supporting other parents in a variety of situations including isolation, bereavement, multiple births, illness or disability.
Quotes from a selection of Home-Start families who are facing financial difficulties (please note, not all Home-Start families have financial difficulties – some have volunteer support for health or social reasons):
“I can't face bills. I usually don't open them and put them in a drawer to forget about them.”
“No one helps you. You telephone the benefits department and they leave you hanging on. I call from a mobile and it is expensive.”
“Nobody cares if you can't feed your children. What am I meant to live on?”
About Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG)
CPAG is the leading charity campaigning for the abolition of child poverty in the UK and for a better deal for low-income families and children. CPAG will lead the development and delivery of face to face training for 70 Home-Start volunteers, and provide additional content for the Turn2us website and the online training for all participating Home-Start volunteers.