Lottery back early response to domestic violence.
Early help for people affected by domestic violence is one of the priorities in funding awarded today by the Big Lottery Fund .
Three England-wide schemes are sharing close to £700,000 from the Fund’s Reaching Communities programme.
Along with services for people affected by domestic violence, the schemes benefiting from today’s lottery good causes funding include help to improve the vision for those with Macular Disease and also to provide comfort for children receiving treatment for brain tumours.
Relate has been awarded £480,285 to fund its three-year Domestic Violence and Abuse: – Recognition and Response project. They will provide confidential opportunities at Relate Centres across England for people to confide at an early stage that they are affected by domestic violence or abuse. This will ensure people are given support including signposting, information giving, referral and safety focused counselling to help them and their children as soon as possible. Perpetrators of domestic violence will also be encouraged to take responsibility for their actions and change their behaviour.
Claire Tyler, Chief Executive of Relate, said: “I am delighted to begin my time as Chief Executive of Relate with such positive news. Our counsellors see over 150,000 clients each year and one-in-four disclose domestic violence or abuse in their couple relationship. This funding will enable Relate to take forward our pioneering work in this area, producing earlier recognition of the problem and a more effective response both to the vulnerable adults experiencing the trauma of domestic violence and abuse and their children.”
Helping people suffering from Macular Disease enhance their remaining vision, the Macular Disease Society has been awarded £131,243. The organisation offers support to people with Macular Disease – a condition that causes loss of central vision, preventing a person from seeing finer details, recognising faces or reading.
The money will fund the development of its Train the trainer – Eccentric Viewing Courses, allowing volunteers from the Society’s local groups across England to pass on eccentric viewing and steady eye strategy training to others. Eccentric viewing is a method helping people affected by Macular Disease to use their remaining peripheral vision to compensate for the loss of central vision, providing them with a better quality of life.
Tom Bremridge, Chief Executive of the Macular Disease Society, says: “This scheme will revolutionise the lives of younger working people with macular disease and greatly enhance the quality of life of older people with age related macular degeneration.
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Lottery awards centre on domestic violence./ page 2 of 2
“The three day courses consist of interactive theoretical sessions and practical sessions in which participants work in pairs to develop use of the eccentric viewing and steady eye techniques and to learn to teach the skill to others.”
Finally, an £86,000 grant will provide trolleys containing puzzles, toys and arts and crafts materials at all 16 children’s cancer wards in England. The initiative run by Clowns in the Sky will help distract children being treated for brain tumours from their condition and treatment. Another part of the Clowns Toy Trolleys project will pay for a fundraiser to raise money for the group through volunteers across the country and volunteers will provide emotional support for families.
Sanjay Dighe, Big Lottery Fund Chair of England Committee, said: “Although these awards are funding very different projects, each has the same overall aim of improving quality of life. This is something that is at the forefront of the Reaching Communities programme, which is helping organisations make a real difference to both individual lives and communities as a whole.”
Big Lottery Fund Press Office: 020 7211 1888
Out of hours contact: 07867 500 572
Public Enquiries Line: 08454 102030 Textphone: 0845 6021 659
Full details of the Big Lottery Fund programmes and grant awards are available on the website: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk
Notes to Editors
- The Big Lottery Fund rolls out close to £2 million in Lottery good cause money every 24 hours which together with other Lottery distributors means that across the UK most people are within a few miles of a Lottery-funded project.
- The Big Lottery Fund, the largest of the National Lottery good cause distributors, has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK since its inception in June 2004. It was established by Parliament on 1 December 2006.
- Since the National Lottery began in 1994, 28p from every pound spent by the public has gone to Good Causes. As a result, over £20 billion has now been raised and more than 250,000 grants given out across the arts, sport, heritage, charities, health, education and the environment.
- Reaching Communities is part of the Big Lottery Fund’s portfolio of new programmes. Following an intense and comprehensive process of consultation with stakeholders and the general public over the last year, the Fund has undertaken to distribute 60-70% of its funding to the third sector. At least one-third of BIG funding will be demand-led and lightly prescribed. In England, this will amount to at least £600 million over the period 2005-2009. This commitment will be met from a variety of funding streams, including, Reaching Communities, Awards for All, part of the Young People’s Fund, Community Buildings, Advice Services and the People’s Millions.
- UK-wide, the Big Lottery Fund will distribute through its new programmes and allocations funding worth over £2.6bn between now and April 2009. Regularly updated information on the Big Lottery Fund’s new programmes is available at www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/publications.htm
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