An interactive session for anyone who works with low income families or individuals, to help identify, understand and address fuel poverty.
About this event
With increased domestic fuel costs, and unprecedented volatility in the energy market, people on low incomes, including pensioners, people with disabilities and families, face profound challenges keeping their homes warm, dry and conducive to health.
As a frontline worker or a volunteer you may spot the signs but feel powerless to address your service users underlying situation.
But there are things you can do. This is not only, if at all, about encouraging people to switch supplier. That can bring benefits but too often, fuel-poor consumers don’t have ready access to the full benefits of the competitive energy market.
Nudging the people you help towards changes in the way they use energy and conserve it AND making sure they can access the high-quality, intensive energy advice the Citizens Advice service in Essex offers is the way to go. Our services seek to tackle some of the underlying causes of fuel poverty – not just “hard to heat” homes, but also low incomes, issues with benefits and debt.
In this FREE course, delivered by Citizens Advice energy experts, you’ll learn:
What is fuel poverty
What are the causes and effects
Who is most vulnerable
Practical steps your service user can take
Grants and schemes available to improve energy efficiency
The vital role income maximisation plays and how we help
Other ways Citizens Advice can help and how to refer
The fund is open for applications now. It provides grants to help social enterprises rebuild from COVID-19. It is established in partnership by The National Lottery Community Fund and five social enterprise support agencies.
Social enterprises in England
Your social enterprise must have been incorporated for at least a year. Most of your beneficiaries should be in England.
Reliant on trading for impact
Your annual income was between £20,000 and £1.8 million pre-COVID-19 or in your last financial year. Your social enterprise on should be substantially reliant income from trading (e.g. sales and contracts) to deliver social impact. If your trading has been affected by COVID-19, you should have a clear plan for growing or returning to substantial trading income.
Our priorities
We want to reach the most marginalised communities and to promote inclusion. We want to support social enterprises that are helping communities affected by COVID-19 to recover, and to help social enterprises themselves to recover and rebuild their trading.
Applications open on 2 December for grants from the new £4 million fund to support suicide prevention voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations across 2021 to 2022.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has made available £4 million for a grant fund to support suicide prevention VCSE organisations across 2021 to 2022. A portion of the grant fund will be ring-fenced specifically to help support small community-led and user-led groups and organisations.
Application process
The application portal for the grant fund will open on 2 December and will close on 6 January 2022. The grant fund is being administered by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) on behalf of DHSC.
Further guidance and support on the application process will be available through a webinar shortly.
This page will be updated on 2 December with a link to the application portal, and key documents including the application guidance. This guidance will provide full details of the fund, eligibility criteria and application process.
We know that you’re already part of the conversation, but do you know someone who would benefit from joining The Essex Alliance community?
The Alliance exists to amplify and coordinate the voice of the Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise (VCFSE) sector and strengthen our relationship with other areas in Essex.
If you know someone who might be interested in being part of this ambition, please forward them this news article so they can sign up today to receive a free weekly newsletter and they can get involved and join the conversation.
When applying for funding from Enovert Community Trust, it is important to demonstrate how your proposal will benefit your community.
Your application will be more effective if you can outline who will be using your facility, how many members of the community will frequent it, and if you can demonstrate a real need for it in the local area. Letters of support are helpful, as is succinct information about your project, which will enable the Trustees to gauge its impact. To be eligible for funding from the Trust, your organisation must comply with the following guidelines:
Non-profit distributing You don’t need to be a charity, but any surplus you make must be used to further your organisation’s objects. Surplus must not be used to pay dividends or other rewards.
Available to the general public: Your facility must be available to the general public as much as possible, and no less than four evenings or two days a week, or for more than 104 days in any one year.
Located within 10 miles of a landfill site or waste management facility operated by Enovert Management Limited in Kingswinford, Gloucestershire, Southend-On-Sea, South Gloucestershire, Walsall, Colchester or Weston-super-Mare.
Enovert’s Greatness Landfill Site in Sevenoaks is now closed and as a result the Trust has closed to new applications from the Sevenoaks area. Its last funding round for Sevenoaks was 10 September 2021 for a meeting on 19 October 2021.
Tesco Community Grants helps to fund thousands of local projects across the country. Since 2016 the scheme has supported over 40,000 community groups with more than £90 million in grants. The scheme aims to make a positive difference – because where our communities thrive, our business and our colleagues thrive too.
Tesco Community Grants is managed by Groundwork who are working with greenspace scotland to support applicants in Scotland.
How does Tesco Community Grants work?
Tesco Community Grants is open to charities and community organisations to apply for a grant of up to £1,500. Every three months, three local good causes are selected to be in the blue token customer vote in Tesco stores throughout the UK.
To apply for this position please download and complete the three-part application form at the bottom of this page and send it to [email protected] by the closing date of Thursday 2nd December 2021.