WIREDGOV

Over 90 projects across England yesterday shared £27.3 million in Lottery festive cheer. Projects ranging from support for individuals and families effected by Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) to the delivery of the National Reading Network for prisoners who have little or no reading skills.

Yesterday’s funding came from the Big Lottery Fund’s Reaching Communities programme helping communities and projects most in need.

Spinal Muscular Atrophy Support UK (formerly the Jennifer Trust for Spinal Muscular Atrophy) receives £499,714 to develop its outreach support service which will benefit around 450 individuals and families who have been affected by the condition.

The outreach service will provide a tailored and individualised support to families including home visiting, telephone and email support plus an information service to anyone affected by SMA. The funding will enable the team to develop a more streamlined service providing a duty system which will cover all new phone, email and website queries.

After an individual has been diagnosed with the condition, the charity will make an initial home visit providing the family with an opportunity to take time to ask all their questions about the condition and the future. Families will be supported at different stages as their children get older and start facing new challenges such as access, going to school or spinal surgery. An area that has seen increased demand is for adults with SMA. Advocacy and support for home adaptations and health and social care packages will be further developed.

The outreach support service will also capture on film and in writing for sharing people’s personal experiences to help each other. Topics to be covered will include managing the condition, overcoming the social and institutional barriers faced by disabled people and achieving their own ambitions. They will also work with around 20 volunteers who either have SMA themselves or care for someone who has through a Peer Support Volunteer Network which will be facilitated by a Peer Support Coordinator using a specially designed website to help answer questions from families or professionals directly.

Supporting prisoners who have low reading skills is the Shannon Trust which will use£450,000 for its National Reading Network reaching out to prisoners in all public prisons. Focus is put on ensuring that every non-reading prisoner is given the best possible opportunity to learn to read.

Literate prisoners will be matched with non-readers and act as mentors to teach others using the Shannon Trust’s reading plan, manuals and other resources which are provided free of charge to the prisons. Local prison representatives of the Trust will visit the prisons to train the mentors to be able to teach their non-reading peers. The project will work closely with the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) and collaborate with the Prison Radio Association and the Prison’s Video Trust to develop resources that promote learner management. It is expected that with the support of the prison service and its staff, the Shanoon Trust will be able to teach tens of thousands of prisoners to read.

Potential learners will be identified through a Basic Skills Assessment that is carried out as part of the prison induction. The mentor will then provide the individual with a confidential and personal invitation to join the plan.  Ideas generated by mentors and learners to reach out to other prisoners will be put in action including mentor t-shirts, wristbands and posters. Learners will be expected to access the project five days a week for 20 minutes per day. Over the course of the funding, 19,500 non-reading prisoners will benefit directly from the project and 5,000 peer mentors will be trained.

Nat Sloane, Big Lottery Fund England Chair said: “I am delighted that this Christmas we can make a difference to the start of 2015 for so many organisations that do such inspirational work for people and communities most in need.”

A full list of the 93 projects that received funding yesterday is available here

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Notes to editors

• The Big Lottery Fund is responsible for giving out 40% of the money raised by the National Lottery.
• The Fund is committed to bringing real improvements to communities and the lives of people most in need and has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK. Since its inception in 2004 it has awarded close to £6bn.
• In the year ending 31 March 2013, 28% of total National Lottery revenue was awarded to projects. Since the National Lottery began in 1994, £32 billion has been raised and more than 450,000 grants awarded.