November 2024
The winter months can be difficult for many of us, with the colder weather and shorter daylight hours affecting everything from our finances to our feelings.
We've put together a series of special edition 'winter support and wellbeing' newsletters to share information and advice to help you and your families to stay well, warm, happy and safe this winter.
This one is about help with the cost of living, because if you don’t have enough money to live on, it's important to make sure you know what support is available.
The Government has made funding available to local councils so that they can offer direct support to those most in need in their area. It's called the Household Support Fund.
It must be used to help people who are struggling to pay for food, energy, water bills and other related essentials, and specifically those households that may not be eligible for other support that is already available from the Government.
This year, Devon has been allocated a little over £5 million, and we are working closely with Devon's eight District, City and Borough councils as well as voluntary and community partners on several schemes that will support our most vulnerable residents over the coming months. Please visit your local council's website for details of what support is available in your area:
If you're struggling to pay your energy bill or have a prepay meter and can't afford to top it up, Citizens Advice Devon can help.
We've given Citizens Advice Devon money from the Government's Household Support Fund to provide fuel vouchers for electricity and gas to anyone struggling to meet their household bills, whether it's by prepayment meter, on receipt of a bill or by direct debit.
Citizens Advice Devon also provide longer-term support through initiatives that help homes become more energy efficient, as well as ‘warmth bundles’ to help people stay warm at home. These bundles include things like heated throws, body warmers or rechargeable hot water bottles.
Contact your local Citizens Advice office for more information.
Our Team Devon partners at district, borough and city councils have been given a share of the Household Support Fund to enable them to provide 'one off' financial help to households who are vulnerable and struggling financially to secure food, water, energy and other essentials.
They will look to identify, contact and help those who may not be eligible for the other support the Government has recently made available, but who are nevertheless in need.
Details of what is on offer in each area is available on your local council's website.
We are continuing to work with the Devon Community Foundation, sharing some of the Household Support Fund with them so that they can help communities that are under-served by other support programmes, and are likely therefore to be impacted more severely by the cost of living crisis.
The Foundation's 'Food, Fuel and More' programme has so far distributed more than £1.3 million in grants to voluntary and community groups. Their work supports households with disabled residents or those suffering ill-health, which has a direct impact on household income and their ability to meet food and energy bills. This also includes people experiencing homelessness and those in temporary or insecure housing; and minority ethnic communities who are not accessing support through other channels; and Traveller, Gypsy and Roma communities.
A total of £200,000 funding is available through this latest round. Small grants of up to £5,000 are available for voluntary and community groups working with people from under-served communities who are struggling to afford food, utility bills and other related essentials. Find out more on the Devon Community Foundation website.
Many local groups and organisations support their community over winter, and we support them through our Growing Communities Fund.
We set up the fund to support proactive, effective, measurable and sustainable actions to help people and communities build self-reliance and resilience, reduce loneliness and isolation, improve local people’s mental health and wellbeing and reduce food and fuel inequalities.
Grants of between £500 and £1,000 are available for projects that, for example, offer communities a warm welcome and a safe space, something to eat and drink, and a place to work, learn, socialise or encourage healthy activity and address hardship. There's also support for the recruitment, training and retention of volunteers.
For more information and to apply for a grant, please visit our website.
If you're struggling to pay food bills, we encourage you to check your eligibility and apply for free school meals for your child.
All children in reception, year 1 and year 2 at state schools in England automatically get free school meals. From year 3 onwards, just children whose parents are receiving certain benefits are entitled to free school meals during term time. However, parents are encouraged to apply for free school meals when they enrol their child in school, as this can help their child’s school to attract additional ‘pupil premium‘ funding to support their learning.
Some children whose parents meet the eligibility criteria and whose child attends a school nursery all day can also get a free school meal when they are two, three or four years old.
You can apply for free school meals for your child on our website, and you'll get an instant decision. Or you can call our education helpline on 0345 155 1019.
If you have applied unsuccessfully before and your financial circumstances have since changed, please apply again.
The financial challenges faced by some families can be intensified during school holidays because of increased costs such as food, especially with the current cost of living, and reduced incomes due to childcare.
We want to make sure that no child in Devon goes hungry in the school holidays, when free school meals are unavailable. We can only do that by using some of the Government’s Household Support Fund to help families who receive benefits-related free school meals during term time, to purchase food over the holidays.
Supermarket vouchers worth £45 will be sent to each child currently eligible for free school meals during term time, to spend during the Christmas holiday and February half-term break to replace the meals they would have had at school during the day. More detailed information about our free school meals holiday voucher scheme is available on our website.
Children aged five to 16-years-old who are eligible for benefits-related free school meals are invited to take part in our action-packed Holiday Activities and Food programme.
We've teamed up with over 60 different providers across Devon to offer a great range of free physical activities and healthy, nutritional, hot meals during the school holidays.
Activities including a range of sports and coaching opportunities, indoor and outdoor play activities; magic and circus skills; film making; arts and crafts; music; cooking; theatre workshops; yoga and mindfulness; and a lot more! Some schemes are also offering hampers for the holidays.
Bookings are now open, and details of activities can be found on our interactive map. If your child is eligible to access the programme, simply search for a provider in your area, have a look at their listing to see what they’re offering, then when you’re ready, book a place with them directly.
Childcare is one of the biggest costs facing working families today.
The Government wants to make childcare more affordable and accessible to reduce the barriers that may be preventing some parents from working.
The Childcare Choices website brings together all of the existing childcare offers in one place, so parents can get the help that fits their family.
This could be through Tax Free Childcare, 30 Hours Funded Childcare, or Universal Credit Childcare. Some families might be eligible to use more than one childcare scheme together to get the most out of it.
There's also a 'Childcare Calculator' to add up all the help you can get.
If you’re more than ten weeks pregnant or have a child under four-years-old, you may be entitled to get help to buy healthy food, such as fresh, frozen and tinned fruit and vegetables, fresh, dried, and tinned pulses and cow's milk.
If you’re eligible, you’ll be sent a Healthy Start card with money added to it every four weeks. You can also use your card for infant formula milk based on cow’s milk and to collect vitamins for you and vitamin drops for babies and young children.
To find out more, visit the NHS website.
The Government is encouraging pensioners to check if they qualify for pension credit, and if so, to apply for it in order to receive the winter fuel payment, and other benefits. You'll need to apply by Saturday 21 December to get the winter fuel payment though, as that's the final date for making a backdated claim for pension credit.
Pension Credit tops up your weekly income to £218.15 if you’re single; or your joint weekly income to £332.95 if you have a partner.
You can apply for Pension Credit up to four months before you reach State Pension age, or any time after you reach State Pension age, but your application can only be backdated by three months.
You can apply online, over the telephone, or by post. To find out if you are eligible for Pension Credit, visit the Government’s website.
Libraries across Devon are continuing to throw their doors open to help communities find warmth and stay well this winter.
Staff and volunteers are pulling out all the stops to make sure people feel welcomed and supported with a range of activities and offers such as community events, free hot drinks and rails full of warm coats for anyone who needs one.
Library teams have devised their own programmes of services for individual communities, considering customer need for their particular location. To find out what Libraries Unlimited is planning as part of their Cold Days, Warm Libraries campaign, keep an eye on their website or visit your nearest library’s website. You can join any of the Devon libraries for free by visiting Libraries Unlimited’s Devon website.
With energy prices set to rise and people on lower incomes possibly worrying about their finances this winter, Trading Standards is reminding people not to be tempted by ‘loan sharks’.
Loan sharks target vulnerable people who may not be able to obtain credit through mainstream providers. They may appear to be a friendly face offering a favour but can end up trapping borrowers into a cycle of debt with high interest rates. Some may use threats, intimidation, or violence if repayments cannot be met.
Read our full story for safety tips to protect you and your loved ones from loan sharks.
If it looks too good to be true, it probably is
With the cost of living crisis and particularly before Christmas people are on the lookout for a bargain. Fraudsters are aware of this and waiting to exploit you.
Research shows more than one in four people have been tricked by purchase scams, which is where a person makes a payment for goods or services online that never turn up.
Criminals often advertise technology products like phones or computers at low prices to attract buyers, persuading them to make bank transfers, then disappearing once the payment is made. They generally do this either through fake websites or fake ads on social media as well as auction sites.
Check website links to make sure they are genuine. They should start with 'https' and have a padlock in the address bar which you can click on for more information about the website's security. Also read reviews online across a range of sources, such as Trustpilot or Feefo.
Never be rushed into making a purchase. Always take five to stop fraud.
Worrying about money can have a big impact on your mental health and wellbeing, and in turn, having poor mental health can make managing your finances harder.
So it's important to do things that help you feel more in control and get support if you need it.
The NHS Every Mind Matters website has lots of support and information that can help if you're facing money worries, including helping you manage your debt, which can help reduce the immediate stress.
Some broadband and phone providers offer cheaper packages to help customers on low incomes. They’re called 'social tariffs', although some providers call them ‘essential’ or ‘basic’ broadband. They're delivered in the same way as normal packages, just at a lower price.
Most providers require you to be in receipt of certain benefits to qualify. You can check if your current provider offers a social tariff on the Ofcom website, and if they do you can contact them and ask to switch.
 Please visit the 'Cost of Living' section of our website for more information for residents and businesses in Devon who are struggling to afford to pay for their energy, water, food or other essential items.
As part of our 'winter support and wellbeing' series, we sent subscribers a special edition newsletter about the things you can do to look after your physical and mental health during the colder months. If you missed it in your inbox you can read it online here.
We also sent one about travelling safely around the county when there is a risk of ice, snow, floods and fallen trees. It's also available to read online here.
|
