Training Volunteers to become Debt Advisers

Aim

To meet the huge rise in demand for our services, helping those most in need throughout the cost-of-living crisis with debt advice.

Who we are  

Crosslight works to lift people out of poverty and help them build a better future. With 18 locations throughout London and the South, we work with some of the most marginalised and vulnerable people in society through our programmes providing comprehensive debt & benefit advice, building financial resilience through money education and budgeting coaching, and mentoring clients with open-ended holistic support.  

As we emerge from the pandemic, and with an explosion in the cost of living - especially for those on the lowest incomes - we have seen a huge surge in client numbers. We know this number will keep growing as our clients struggle to afford rent, food and rising utilities bills. 

What we do 

1) Advise: We provide comprehensive debt and benefit advice, focusing on the unique circumstances of each individual. The end-to-end support we provide includes in-depth casework for the most vulnerable. We act as advocates for our clients, working at their pace and adapting to their individual needs and abilities.  

2) Equip: A key part of our mission is to create lasting change so that our clients can face the future with more confidence and become better equipped to meet their full potential. We do this through one-to-one budget coaching and our 'Money Course' workshops – both face-to-face and online – to help clients understand their own finances and teach them simple financial skills, and thereby build resilience over the long-term.  

3) Encourage: Our aim is to go beyond crisis advice and support clients throughout their journey. We achieve this by taking a genuinely holistic approach which includes mentoring, befriending, social-engagement and encouragement - empowering them to turn their lives around. 

4) Resourcing Others: As well as providing services directly to our clients, we also seek to build community, and support those in need beyond our catchment areas. We do this by making our Money Course and money education programmes available to other organisations and community groups to run for their own service users. Our Money Course Leader’s Hub provides online training and support, as well as full access to all our resources and videos so that our workshops can be run wherever there is a need. Likewise our free, online Budget Builder (web and app) is designed to compliment the Money Course and enables anyone to build their own household budget and use it to manage their money more effectively day-to-day.   

Our Project

We are committed to supporting disadvantaged and vulnerable communities. We support those experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity. This is one of the primary drivers of our referrals and an issue we see prevalently among most of our clients.  The number of homeless clients we have supported has increased every year since 2017, with 15% of clients currently homeless or without their own accommodation. Further, 56% of our casework clients are in rent arrears and facing eviction. 

As we are preparing for continued increased demand for 2022 and 2023, we are seeking to increase our ability to provide technical training and mentoring to our volunteers, debt advisers, and case managers. We need to do this so that we can continue to improve our support to those struggling financially and expand the amount of qualified debt advisers working for Crosslight.  

This funding will help us to provide training for 30 volunteers, which will enable Crosslight to holistically support our clients even further.  

As Crosslight has already needed to adapt and scale up our service to meet the significantly increased demand in 2022, this funding will help us to scale up even further.

This project successfully funded on 15th November 2022