Karolina Gerlich, CEO, The Care Workers’ Charity
As 2023 progresses, the care sector has faced a stream of disappointing lack of support, commitment and hope for the future of the sector. It has become more and more apparent that answers must come from within itself as the lifeboats are not coming from parliament any time soon.
That’s why at The Care Workers’ Charity we decided to offer providers the ability to set up support funds for their own employees that work the same way as the fund we run for care workers across the UK. It is our way to further support care workers, providers and the wider sector.
Since 2020, our grants and mental health support have benefited over 8700 people who work in formal care settings across the UK. This has been done by awarding over £5 million in grants.
The people we support often tell us how the grant made a huge difference, helping them to feel better supported and more likely to stay in their job.
We give out on average £500 to eligible care workers, many of whom use the money to repair their car, replace the washing machine or lay a loved one to rest. Increasingly, we find that our grants are needed to support with daily living costs, household bills or to pay off arrears. We have already partnered with several care providers to deliver grants to their own employees.
Let us help by designing a hardship fund for your employees only. We will work with you to ensure
that the grants reach those who need them most and tackle the issues which are important to you teams. For example, you could allocate funds for:
- Cost of living support
- Help with childcare costs
- Energy bills scheme
- Mental wellbeing and health support
We will work with you to design a fund which meets your requirements including bespoke eligibility criteria, application requirements, assessment frameworks and grant limits. Our flagship Crisis Grants Programme can be used as a template to support you to create your own guidance covering which groups of staff may be able to apply for a grant and what they can apply for to address current issues such as the cost-of-living crisis.
Once agreed we will set up a branded page on our website for your employees to access information regarding eligibility, evidence requirements and a bespoke application form linked to the eligibility requirements. You will determine the total amount of funding to be delivered for the hardship grant, plus an additional administration fee – this will depend on the size and complexity of the fund.
Our independent grants team are very experienced, compassionate and professional with expertise in awarding grants by assessing, verifying, scoring and processing applications. The team take a holistic approach to assessment and use a multi-factor authorisation process to keep grant applicant information as secure as possible. They use Salesforce as a way of processing grants, monitoring progress and liaising with grant beneficiaries and the people who provide supporting evidence towards their grant applications. Independently assessing each application based on the eligibility criteria and the evidence provided by applicants, and award grants to those who are eligible, for agreed amounts.
We will also provide regular reports detailing the number of grants awarded, as well as other information as required always adhering to GDPR and data protection. In return, we ask that you make your staff aware of the fund by distributing materials and advertising the fund as part of your internal communications.
There are many benefits of joining the Employee Grant Giving scheme. We find that showing support for your teams in this way improves retention of care workers in your organisation.
By Supporting the financial wellbeing of your staff and increasing their resilience during the current cost of living crisis.
Employee Grant Giving promotes the dignity and wellbeing of your teams – often people are reluctant to share their personal circumstances with colleagues when they may be in financial difficulty or at risk of being evicted from their homes. Having an external organisation in charge of applications – applicants feel more protected from judgement or embarrassment.
We also provide and independent assessment of applications by our very experienced Grants Team who can also signpost applicants to other information or resources where we can’t help.
Recent announcements have shown that, we – as a sector will have to help ourselves. If you would like more information about setting up a support fund for your team, please get in touch.
