Maddie Henson

Family Fund

Family Fund deliver grants for families raising a disabled or seriously ill child or young people on a low income across the UK.

1. How are you helping to tackle child poverty in London?

Family Fund helps families across the UK who are raising disabled and seriously ill children and young people on low incomes, with grants, tailored information and support about financial issues, and benefits checks. We have grants for families with a child or young person aged up to 17, and for families with a young person living at home aged 18 to 24. Find out about our grants and services on our website. 

1. Tell us something you are excited about?

Right now we’re really excited about the growth of our information and support services. We’ve just launched our new Discover more support tool on our website. The tool is a searchable online database full of over 145 organisations who can support families raising disabled and seriously ill children on a low income. We are also running more free managing finances workshops online, and we’re exploring partnerships to deliver more free online support such as our iPad accessibility workshops with Guide Dogs. To keep up to date, find us on Facebook @familyfund

1. Share with our members something positive about your organisation’s achievement or service?

We get lovely feedback about our online workshops.

“Education isn’t a one-size-fits-all, and we’ve found it hard to find activities that work with Joshua’s dyslexia. It feels like everything is either too academic or centred around sports. The workshop allowed Joshua to learn a new skill, use his creativity and have fun. It was perfectly catered to his interests, and as his parents, it was a huge relief for us to find something that he’d enjoy, that didn’t cost a penny.” Helen, mum of Joshua who attended our creative workshops over the summer holidays. 

“I learnt a lot of new things, and the information provided was straightforward. I was taught how to use an online benefits calculator, where you input your details, and it tells you which benefits you’re entitled to. As a result, I discovered I was missing out on the Child Tax Credit element of my benefits. It’s through the Family Fund workshop that I realised that I’m entitled to more money.” Hilda, mum of Kalani, who attended our Checking your benefits online workshop. 

1. What can other network members learn from you or find out more about through you?

We always want to talk to organisations that support families on low incomes who are raising disabled or seriously ill children or young people. As a UK-wide pan-disability organisation working in all the nations of the UK we’re really well connected, involved in partnerships and coalitions working for change and representing families’ issues at a high level. So we can be a great networking resource for smaller, or regional and local-focussed organisations. We’ve been going 50 years, and we’re very careful in our partnership work, so families really trust the information we share with them.

1. What would most help you achieve your goals?

Apart from more funding to be able to provide more grants, or better still an end to poverty and inequality, what would help us most would be being in touch with regional and local organisations so we can reach the families you work with.

1. Why did you join 4in10? What do you enjoy about being part of the 4in10 network?

It’s great to be part of a network of organisations working in really practical ways to tackle the injustice of poverty that families in London face. It’s great to be part of the movement to make a difference.

If you would like to find out more about Family Fund please visit their website.

Acts 435

Acts 435 is an online national charity that connects those that want to help with those that have a need, by resourcing local churches and charities throughout the UK to meet the specific needs of their community.

How are you helping to tackle child poverty in London?

Acts 435 has 116 partners within Greater London, and whilst all of them are undertaking different work, many of these churches and organisations will be utilising Acts 435 to meet the needs of children and their families. One of those partners is Lewisham Foodbank who continually support individuals, families and their children. One recent request was for Annette* who now has legal guardianship of her two grandchildren, and needed to purchase clothing for them. On receiving the money towards the clothing, Annette said, “Can you please extend my gratitude to the people who have helped me to be able to purchase school clothing, and clothing in general, for my two grandchildren. I am overwhelmed with their generosity, which has come at a time when I am most in need of assistance. Again, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.”

Annette also told the local Acts 435 Advocate that, whilst friends and family have passed on some useful second-hand items, it meant so much to two teenage girls to be able to help choose some new clothes, and help to give them dignity in their time of need.

Tell us something you are excited about?

As a charity we’re continually excited about the fact that 100% of the requests that get posted onto our website by our partners are all met quickly, in comparison to a lot of other application processes. As we rely on individual donors going onto our website to give towards the needs, the amount of time for a request to be crowdfunded fluctuates, but generally all requests are met within a maximum of two weeks.  Also, because of this funding model, we can also offer our resource to churches/charities for FREE!

Share with our members something positive about your organisation’s achievement or service?

Acts 435 was founded 14 years ago, and since then we have been able to resource over 700 churches and organisations to meet the specific needs of individuals. During that time we have helped over 52,000 individuals with over £6,000,000, which all goes directly to meet their need. We can also guarantee that 100% of every donation is given to the recipient, as all our charity’s costs are covered by GIft Aid reclaimed on applicable donations.

What can other network members learn from you or find out more about through you?

Our vision is to meet the needs of as many people as possible, all over the UK. However, we’re very aware that many cities, like London, have a huge amount of deprivation. We would love to resource more churches and charities in London with Acts 435 to be able to directly help their communities and those that they may already be supporting through our work. It would be fantastic if we could let as many churches/charities know about us as possible. If you’re not already partnered with us, you may like to attend one of our online coffee mornings to find out more: https://guestlist.co/u/acts435

What would most help you achieve your goals?

As we’re a small charity, with only four paid staff members, we don’t have a fundraising budget and can’t attend all the large events and conferences that many other charities can. Therefore, people spreading the word, and talking about our work, is the most effective way for new churches and charities to hear about us. We would love to equip more people with the knowledge about our work, so that they can then let other churches/charities know about the fantastic resource through Acts 435.

Why did you join 4in10? What do you enjoy about being part of the 4in10 network?

We are quite new to the 4in10 network, and have really appreciated the support from the team. We have also enjoyed sharing our work at  a recent online meeting. We joined because we know that there must be many more churches and charities who are seeking to alleviate child poverty within London, and we want to resource them to meet the needs that they are seeing in their areas of Greater London.

If you would like to find out more about Acts 435 and how your church or organisation could get involved, please visit: acts435.org.uk/partner

Lee Dema from St Matthews Project

1. 1. How are you helping to tackle child poverty in London?

   The majority of our participants live in the Brixton Rush Common and Coldharbour wards of Lambeth which are within the top 10% Deprivation Deciles nationally for crime and living environment.68% of our participants are entitled to free school meals.  At the heart of what we do is a desire to make sure that no child in our community is left behind. To help us realise that aim, we do a number of things. All of our activities are free, which is very important as the vast majority of the young people we work with cannot otherwise afford to make use of the limited sporting facilities available within the local area. To help those who cannot afford proper football boots, we have a scheme where people can donate second-hand boots in good condition to us. We run holiday programmes, which combine access to free high quality sporting activities with a nutritional meal, as well as free after-school snacks twice a week at our estate-based cage football sessions. Some children often take these snacks home for parents. We also hand out take and make boxes, to ensure that our participants are not going hungry, and provide feminine hygiene products to those who need them. We have recently secured some digital inclusion funding enabling us to buy equipment, so that we can support young people with their school work. During the lockdowns, we were able to provide free laptops and dongles to some of our families to ensure that they could fully participate in homeschooling.

   2. Tell us something you are excited about?

   We have seen a marked upturn in the number of young people accessing our services in recent years, particularly in the wake of the pandemic and the ongoing cost of living crisis.  We now regularly work with over 350 young people each week and have been expanding the range of programmes we offer. For example, we are now delivering innovative programmes  focused on improving young people’s mental health and wellbeing in school and community settings. Word of these programmes has spread beyond the project and we are now receiving increasing recognition from local councilors and other organisations for the quality of work we are doing in this area.

   3. Share with our members something positive about your organisation’s achievement or service?

   Football is a powerful hook for young people in our area and experience has shown us that it is the best means to deliver support and guidance. Due to the relationships we have built up with young people and their families over a long period of time, we have earned a legitimacy to advise and help them in a way that other organisations cannot.  Young people turn to St Matthew’s because our consistent approach to working with the community provides them with a sense of stability in increasingly uncertain times. As a result, we can maintain relationships with young people who are on the fringes of our community when they have cut themselves off from most or all of the other positive influences in their lives. Equally, it means that their families feel able to come to us for support when they are often reluctant to engage with statutory services. Our coaches are recruited from within the local community and include people who have been St. Matthew’s members who can then act as inspiring and positive role models to the participants. We find that using former participants, including ex-gang members, as coaches not only has a knock-on effect for that particular individual, but also on the young people they are working with, who begin to see what they could do in the future. Through our partnerships with local education providers, residents’ associations and community groups, we know that we are unique in the area in the type of sport and training programmes we deliver. Staff, parents, the police and young people all say that they think our activities offer something positive and can help deter young people from getting involved in more negative activities.

   4. What can other network members learn from you or find out more about through you?

   We are a good example of the importance of being firmly rooted in your local community. Being ‘hyper’ local can actually be an advantage, as it affords you the opportunity to really build up trust and credibility.  It isn’t always about trying to expand your geographical reach.

   5. What would most help you achieve your goals?

   Just like any other voluntary organisation, long-term funding is crucial to helping us achieve our goals. We currently have a very small staff team, comparative to the amount of services we are delivering to such a large number of young people. We need to look to increase our size in line with the demand for our programmes. In addition, help with reporting and data analysis would be goo

   6. Why did you join 4in10? What do you enjoy about being part of the 4in10 network?

   We joined the network to ensure that we are as well informed about child poverty issues as possible. It’s useful for us to be part of a group of organisations who understand the issue and challenges we face.