Hardship Support Forum for people on low income

Aim

To launch a crisis drop-in support service for people in poverty, and those on low income to develop necessary finance management skills.

WHO WE ARE, AND WHAT WE DO:

Calm Minds-UK is a registered charity, which was also incorporated in 2018 as a limited company by guarantee. The charity was started and is being managed by a group of individuals who were concerned about the increasing incidences of mental health related conditions in their families, as well other issues affecting migrant families.   

 In Newham, where we are based, we work with mainly migrants and Refugees, particularly those from the African continent with a focus on improving their mental health and wellbeing. We provide support and advocacy to individuals and families who often struggle to find a purpose in their lives.  At our centre in Forest Gate, we operate a drop-in and online support services, while working with individuals from all walks of life who comes to us with various needs for support. 

CURRENT ACTIVITIES: 

 Currently, most of the work/activities delivered at the centre include the following.

 1. Open door drop-in support with digital skills and access to online services for the elderly and people with low digital skills. 

2. Weekly volunteer-led mental health and wellbeing support, and discussion forums. 

3. Provision of information, guidance, and referrals to other services 

4. Home visits and befriending for those living lonely in isolation. 

5. Bereavement support programme

THE NEED OR ISSUE WE ARE FUNDRAISING FOR:

We are looking for donations to enable us to launch a crisis drop-in support service for people pushed into poverty by the pandemic, and those on low income and struggling with the current economic challenges. 

The income crisis drop-in support service will help them develop the necessary skills to understand their spending priorities and the importance of Financial Health when living on low income.

This will be a pilot project programme, aimed at helping individuals and families struggling on low income, and struggling to budgeting their finances. It will be a sessional one-to-one and group drop-in service, facilitated by a team of specialised volunteers (Trained and skilled in managing finances). The attached volunteers will be supervised and managed by a senior member of staff.

The team will help the beneficiaries with developing financial budgeting skills such as the following:

1. Basic income and expenditure documenting

2. Managing borrowing and credits 

3. Know your spending skills

4. Monitoring income/cash flow skills

5. Setting realistic finance goals

The people being targeted on this project are mainly people who are most at risk of suffering mental health conditions, having suicidal thoughts, risking to alcoholism or those at the age of drifting into the life of crime due to financial hardships.

WHY THE SERVICE IS NEEDED:

At our centre in Forest Gate in East London, we work with a growing number of individuals on several programme who are seriously in need of improving their budgeting skills.  Majority of being the elderly, and young men and women some of them ex-offenders living with conditions causing them severe depression and many being pushed into isolation due to financial hardships. 

 This funding will enable us to create a drop-in support forum/platform which will enable us to continue with improving the skills of our service users, as well as expanding the same service to other vulnerable members of the community who lives with low or no budgeting skills.

There are many people accessing our services who desperately needs help with managing their lives under low income, particularly the elderly, and people in the community living with low educational skills, and other living with experience of being cut-off from the rest of services which were moved to online access only during the lockdown.

 Such people are being pushed to live under increased depression and high levels of anxieties. Most of them being from migrant and refugee background who are struggling to access online services. Their lack of skills to communicate digitally both to the service providers and loved ones for support is living many out of reach to those services and people who could help them out financially. The recent changes in service provision which is switching most of services to digital/online has left most of such users excluded and in need of constant support to manage their lives while living on low income.

We also deal with many single parents who are withdrawn and at risk of suffering mental breakdown due to the lack of budgeting skills.  A challenge which is affecting their lives, and we strongly believe that this funding will enable us to engage them into supervised finance management 

This project successfully funded on 20th September 2022