From Surrey News
Surrey County Council has been awarded nearly £3million to provide additional, tailored support to homeless people and other vulnerable adults, to help them rebuild their lives.
The council, working with a range of public service and voluntary sector partners, made a successful bid for funds under the Changing Futures programme, which aims to support those who face a combination of homelessness, substance misuse, poor mental health, domestic abuse or contact with the criminal justice system.
The Changing Futures programme is a £64 million joint initiative by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) and The National Lottery Community Fund; the largest funder of community activity in the UK. The fund is for local organisations to work in partnership, to better support those who experience multiple disadvantage.
Surrey County Council’s Cabinet Member for Health; Cllr Luke Bennett added; “One of our key priorities is to reduce health inequalities, so that everyone in Surrey can thrive, with no one left behind. Alongside Surrey’s prosperity and economic strength, some stark differences in health and wellbeing exist within the county.
“This funding will enable us to further support the most vulnerable in our communities and help them to turn their lives around. Not only will the award help hundreds of people who are already financially struggling, it will also help us to prevent others from running into similar financial difficulty.
I would like to acknowledge and thank our partners on this initiative including; District and Borough Council housing colleagues, the voluntary and community sector, our local NHS partners, Surrey’s Police and Crime Commissioner, the probation service and a range of rehabilitation services”.
A specialist “trauma informed” outreach service is currently being developed in conjunction with vulnerable people, homeless organisations and experts in mental health, substance misuse and domestic abuse. As part of this work, staff and volunteers at Surrey’s homeless charities and organisations will be trained to assist those who have experienced and/or are living with trauma. A charter (currently under development), will set out in more detail how this will work.
This activity, taking place in Surrey under the Changing Futures programme, will feed into a national evaluation project, to help inform national policy on how the most vulnerable in our society can optimally be supported.
About the Changing Futures programme
The Changing Futures programme is a three year, £64 million programme, hosted by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and funded through the government’s Shared Outcomes Fund, with aligned funding from The National Lottery Community Fund.
The programme seeks to test new ways of bringing together the public sector and community sector to address cross-cutting issues and to drive the modernisation of public services for people experiencing multiple disadvantage.
Working with 15 local area partnerships across England, the programme will work with people who experience a combination of homelessness, substance misuse, mental health issues, domestic abuse and contact with the criminal justice system.
People in this situation are among the most vulnerable in our communities, often with past experiences of trauma. Getting coordinated support from local services can be difficult, and this can lead to greater risk of homelessness, ill health, and increased contact with the criminal justice system. This in turn can result in greater pressures on services that respond to crises such as A&E, policing and homelessness services.
Bringing together £46m of funding from the Government and almost £18m from The National Lottery Community Fund – the largest funder of community activity in the UK – means the programme can work with local areas for a third year, enabling more vulnerable people in our communities to get the help they need.
The funding builds on The National Lottery Community Fund’s ‘Fulfilling Lives’ programme – a £112 million investment over 8 years (2014-2022) that focuses on improving support for vulnerable people, by giving them a greater voice in the design and delivery of services.
The Changing Futures programme, announced in 2020, began work in local areas in June 2021 and will continue until the end of March 2024. It aims to deliver improvements at the individual, service and system level:
- to stabilise and then improve the life situation of adults who face multiple disadvantage
- to transform local services to provide a person-centred approach and to reduce crisis demand.
- to test a different approach to funding, accountability and engagement between local commissioners and services, and between central government and local areas.
Our partners are:
- Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
- The National Lottery Community Fund
- Ministry of Justice
- Department for Work and Pensions
- Home Office
- Department of Culture, Media and Sport
- Department of Health and Social Care
- Public Health England
- NHS England
- HM Treasury
- Government Equalities Office
About The National Lottery Community Fund
We are the largest funder of community activity in the UK – we’re proud to award money raised by National Lottery players to communities across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
National Lottery players raise £36 million each week for good causes throughout the UK. Since June 2004, we have made over 200,000 grants and awarded over £9 billion to projects that have benefited millions of people.
We are passionate about funding great ideas that matter to communities and make a difference to people’s lives. At the heart of everything we do is the belief that when people are in the lead, communities thrive. Thanks to the support of National Lottery players, our funding is open to everyone. We’re privileged to be able to work with the smallest of local groups right up to UK-wide charities, enabling people and communities to bring their ambitions to life.
See the full press release from the MHCLG here.
