WEST LOTHIAN FOODBANK (SCIO) 

To support a core wrap around service that will aim to address poverty and hunger in the West Lothian region.

Continuation grant for PF1 roles (13dpw total) and additional grant for 7% salary uplift and mortgage deposit contribution

Winter Support Grant

Emergency grant

FI Adviser 1dpw, Senior Link Worker 37.5 hpw, 2x Link Worker 52.5 hpw

New warehouse/office premises rent and refurb

To contribute to the West Lothian Foodbank?s necessary change to a home delivery model to ensure emergency food and toiletry parcels reach those in need.

Extra 5hpw for Development assistant

Extra 5hpw for Development assistant

Admin worker extra hours

Employment costs for charity shop staff

We are seeking funding to pilot a new service in West Lothian that will provide those in the community, with the greatest financial need, immediate access to bespoke money management services. All ....more

We are seeking funding to pilot a new service in West Lothian that will provide those in the community, with the greatest financial need, immediate access to bespoke money management services. All clients referred to our foodbank service are experiencing critical financial problems. They are referred to us by any of our 130 partner referral organisations, such as schools, council agencies and third sector organisations. Our service users engage with us when they are at crisis point and in immediate need of help. They literally cannot afford to put food on the table. Unfortunately, many of these clients have been re-referred to our service, after months or years have passed, as they have been unable to improve their desperate financial situation sufficiently. We want to help people manage their finances in such a way that they can avoid returning to a crisis point and perhaps navigate their way out of poverty. Our Financial Triage and Debt Advice project will provide a framework through which we can assist in identifying and acting on the financial needs of individuals referred to the foodbank service, with a view to assisting them to improve their financial capacity and no longer be in a position where they need to be re-referred to our service. This includes help managing or avoiding debt, help setting a budget and making sure that people are accessing any finance available through grants or benefits. Our aim is to have financially trained staff and volunteers to be present in all ten of our distribution centres throughout West Lothian, allowing support, advice and budgeting training to be provided immediately. In order to achieve that, we believe we will need to provide training for 32 volunteers, as well as training for our full-time Foodbank Manager and part-time Development Officer. We will also require to extend the hours of the Development Officer to achieve the recruitment of new volunteers and the co-ordination of training and implementing this new project. In 2015, The Trussell Trust ran a pilot project called 'More Than Food' in eight foodbanks across the UK, to investigate the practicalities of foodbanks directly engaging with financial intervention. The results of the study were very positive, with many clients taking up the offer of immediate financial advice and 90% of them made significant progress after three months. A client who spoke to a financial adviser at Cardiff foodbank said, "Before I met the advisor at the foodbank I was too scared to go to the advice centre as I felt like such a fool. It feels like a weight off my shoulders, they are helping me do a weekly budget, which I have never done before." The pilot project was funded by Martin Lewis, founder of MoneySavingExpert.com, who commented on the success of the pilot, "It was always my hope that this scheme would provide the financial equivalent to 'give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime' – and it seems to be doing just that. Just having someone to sit and talk to, who's got a bit of authority and knowledge about a situation can make a massive difference and that's what 'More Than Food' is all about." The pilot project used training from CAP, a charitable organization who has been helping people to budget, get free from debt and improve their finances for over 20 years. Last year alone, they helped 21,500 people throughout the UK. This is the model we propose to use. As a similar project (More Than Food) has been trialed in a similar organisation to ourselves (The Trussel Trust) and has proved successful to their service users, we are highly motivated to pilot a similar service within our organisation for the benefit of our service users. We will need to recruit new volunteers for this project, provide various training dates from CAP, provide venues for the training, coordinate the rolling out of this service to all ten of our distribution centers in West Lothian and communicate the provision of this new service to our 130 partner referral agencies, volunteers/supporters and service users. We propose to either increase the working hours of the part-time Development Officer to provide 8 hours per week towards the coordination and delivery of this new project, or employ a new part-time member of staff.