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| HOMEPAGEABOUT USNEWS |
5 December 2003
Lottery cash funds research to help people, their carers and the elderly to help themselves
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The latest round of research grants announced today by the Community Fund will enable nine projects led by the voluntary sector to proceed. All projects seek to improve our knowledge on the causes of disadvantage and to translate this knowledge for example into the development of improved or new services, medical interventions or therapies.
On the day when Carers UK have announced that carers are not aware of, or making use of, the assistance they are entitled to, the Community Fund has announced £297,590 to help explore what support is available to carers of people with mental health problems. The grant to the Crossroads Association will fund a project to identify those factors which cause or prevent social inclusion, to ensure carers are able to get the help they need and will map the foundation of a voluntary sector service to support them.
Further grants will also help remove obstacles that prevent people with particular needs from getting support. A £292,648 grant to Bristol Mind will explore how voluntary and statutory services can work most effectively together to ensure that people with severe mental illness are captured by those services. The project will particularly focus on those people who have thus far been hard to engage. Mental illness costs us more as a society than crime. (Sainsbury Centre (2003) Economic and social costs of mental illness) and there is an urgent need for a more inclusive and effective services and intervention. Another grant of £266,004 to Help the Aged will fund a project to research how older people are affected by age discrimination and promote a more age-inclusive society. Currently little is known about how older people experience such discrimination and the project will design and test ways of combating such negative attitudes. The Community Fund’s research grants programme is a unique opportunity for the voluntary sector. It promotes beneficiary led research and awards grants to voluntary sector organizations who can, if they do not have the capacity in-house, conduct research in partnership with universities and research centers. Projects supported by us are unlikely to get funding any other way, and can be of enormous benefit for voluntary sector organizations and their beneficiaries. Age Concern Newcastle-upon-Tyne, recognises that the recipients of care and voluntary activity can also be givers. They have been awarded a £160,167 grant to fund a project to identify the benefits to individuals over 75 of getting involved in voluntary activities. . The aim is to find out exactly what the benefits are so, that such volunteering and to improve training for this age group can be encouraged. Other research grants announced today are £172,288 to the Ethiopian Community Centre in the UK, £147,666 to the British Malignant Hypothermia Association, £285,426 to the Shaw Trust Ltd, £249,750 to the Enuresis Resource & Information Centre and £117,319 to the Restoration of appearance and function trust. Notes for editors
1. Community Fund gives out money raised by the National Lottery to charities, voluntary and community groups. Out of every £1 spent on the National Lottery the Community Fund gets 4.7 pence. 2. Since 1995 Community Fund has awarded over 58,000 grants worth more than £2.6 billion to UK charities and voluntary groups. 3. The legal name of the Community Fund remains the National Lottery Charities Board. The National Lottery Charities Board was set up in 1994 and changed its operation name to Community Fund – Lottery money making a difference in April 2001. 4. Next year the Community Fund is to merge with the New Opportunities Fund in advance of creating a new National Lottery distributor that will administer 50 per cent of all good cause funding. The merger will not affect current programmes, beneficiaries or applications. Further details on the new lottery distributor are expected to be available in Spring 2004. 5. The New Opportunities Fund distributes National Lottery money to health, education and environment projects across the UK. We intend to support sustainable projects that will improve the quality of life of people throughout the UK, address the needs of those who are most disadvantaged in society, encourage community participation and complement relevant local and national strategies and programmes. (Funding for programmes is divided between England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales on the basis of population weighted to reflect levels of deprivation). | For media enquiries please contact the Community Fund press office on 020 7747 5380.
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