Family mediation projects secure £1.5m Lottery funding
14 Apr 2014 03:56 PM
Projects supporting
Scottish families through the toughest of times, including conflict and
relationship breakdown, are to expand their services thanks to over £1.5
million from the Big Lottery Fund.
Today’s total
of £1,574,143 goes to five organisations
supporting child contact centres in different parts of the
country.
• Relationships
Scotland Orkney
• Relationships Scotland Borders
• Relationships Scotland Family Mediation Tayside and Fife
• Family Mediation Argyll & Bute
• Family Mediation Central Scotland
Affiliated to Relationships
Scotland, these local projects provide a network of support helping to guide
families through change and disruption, particularly where this has occurred as
a result of separation, divorce or family restructuring.
Big Lottery Fund,
Scotland Chair, Maureen McGinn said: “Each day many
families across Scotland experience the trauma and distress of family
breakdown. Today’s investment will provide additional support for
parents, carers and children through family mediation which is vital in
bringing families together to reduce conflict and agree on practical, workable
arrangements for the future. While these projects are affiliated to
Relationships Scotland, they each have their own unique priorities which are
one of their biggest strengths. I am delighted to see this funding reaching
into those local communities where it is needed most.”
Welcoming the
news Stuart Valentine, Chief Executive of Relationships
Scotland, said: “Relationships Scotland is delighted that the
Big Lottery Fund in Scotland has provided £1.5m over five years to
support child contact centres across the country. Child contact centres play a
vital role in ensuring that children maintain their relationships with both
parents following separation. This new money will help ensure that many of our
more vulnerable families will receive new specialist support. This will include
help for non-resident parents to establish and develop relationships with their
children, often for the first time. Additional support will also be offered to
help separated couples work together to care for their children, thereby
providing the stability and security that will help enable their children to
thrive.
Relationships Scotland
Family Mediation Tayside and Fife has been
awarded £504,682 to provide additional support
to separated families through its five Child Contact Centres across Dundee,
Angus, Perth and Kinross, and Fife. These centres provide neutral,
child-friendly surroundings and are often the only appropriate location for a
child to meet with a non-resident parent, or other family members. The award
will enable the organisation to increase staff including a new specialist
support worker.
Marta Muranyi, Manager,
Relationships Scotland Family Mediation Tayside and
Fife, said: “We are delighted to receive this five
year grant from the Big Lottery Fund. Without their support, our service may
not be in the position to continue to help the children and families of Tayside
and Fife, in the form of Child Contact Centres. With this contribution from the
Big Lottery Fund, our Centres in Arbroath, Dundee, Glenrothes, Kirkcaldy and
Perth can offer a safe, neutral, professional and child-friendly space to
enable children to spend quality time and build valuable relationships with
their non-resident parent or other family members.”
Family Mediation Argyll
& Bute will also support separated families from their four
contact centres in Oban, Dunoon, Lochgilphead and Helensburgh.
The £190,254 award will be used to employ
additional staff who will focus on early intervention support which can lessen
the trauma and distress of family breakdown.
Tanya MacDougall,
Service Manager, said: “We are delighted to have received
this funding which will make a huge difference to families especially those
living in rural/island areas. It will help us to support children in
vulnerable child contact cases, to maintain positive relationships with both
parents, encouraging parents to develop the skills required to parent
apart. The service will offer local outreach provision to families
ensuring early intervention lessening the trauma and distress of family
break-down and thus reducing the risk of emotional damage to our children
throughout Argyll & Bute.”
A five year award
of £206,384 for Family Mediation
Central Scotland will widen the support it offers from child
contact centres in Stirling, Falkirk and Clackmannanshire. They will provide
targeted, in-depth support to families affected by separation and divorce,
domestic abuse, substance misuse, mental ill-health, or parental
conflict.
Linda Philliben, Chair
of Family Mediation Central Scotland, said: "The timing of
this award from the Big Lottery Fund could not have been more apt. In
June, we will be celebrating 30 years of working with parents and children
across the Forth Valley. So five years' Lottery funding for our
Contact Centre project is testament to the vital support for families that we
continue to deliver."
Relationships Scotland
Orkney will expand its valuable work thanks to a grant
of £429,910. Over the next five years 145 families
affected by relationship difficulties, separation or divorce will benefit from
a range of support from its base in Kirkwall and through outreach activity from
its local child contact centres in Sanday, Stronsay, Hoy, Stromness and West
Mainland.
Helen Moss,
Service Manager, Relationships Scotland Orkney, said: ““We
very much appreciate and welcome the Big Lottery’s decision to invest in
our Family Connections project. This will ensure that many of the children and
families in Orkney who are affected by relationship difficulties, separation
and divorce will get the level of help and support they need to improve family
relationships and children’s future wellbeing.”
Relationships Scotland
Borders will use its grant
of £242,913 to encourage meaningful
relationships between children and non-parents and carers, as well as wider
family members. A dedicated family support worker is a new role that will work
with families who have complex and deep-rooted difficulties, or where contact
is failing. The project will provide one to one parenting support for adults,
as well as mediation and counselling services to help families cope with their
breakdown.
Isobel Bilsland,
Manager, Relationships Scotland Borders, said: "We are delighted
to have been awarded this grant by the Big Lottery Fund which will allow us to
stabilise and expand our very busy contact service and family support work.
Many parents have told us that our centres are 'a lifeline' for them
and their children. Five years of funding will allow us to deliver a more
focused package of practical and emotional support to families throughout the
Scottish Borders."
For more information regarding
this release please contact:
Landa Rolland, Communications Manager
Big Lottery Fund Scotland
0141 242 1458 | landa.rolland@biglotteryfund.org.uk
For more information on Big
Lottery Fund Scotland (including programmes and grants awards):
Visit: www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/scotland
Ask BIG: http://ask.biglotteryfund.org.uk/help/scotland
Call: Big Advice Scotland: 0300 1237110
Notes to
editors
- The Big Lottery
Fund is responsible for giving out 40% of the money raised for
good causes 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 BIG has awarded
close to £6bn.
- The Fund was formally
established by Parliament on 1 December 2006.
- In the year ending 31 March
2013, 28% of total National Lottery revenue was returned to the Good
Causes.
- Since the National Lottery began
in 1994, £31 billion has been raised and more than 400,000 grants awarded
across arts, sport, heritage, charities, health, education and the
environment.
- The Scotland Committee has been
making Big Lottery Fund decisions on Scottish projects since March 2007. As
well as taking devolved decisions on Lottery spending, the Committee, led by
Chair, Maureen McGinn, has and will continue to play a strategic role in the
future direction of BIG in Scotland.
- The Big Lottery Fund is
investing in Scotland’s communities through its Investing in Communities
portfolio, as well as the small grants schemes Awards for All, Investing in
Ideas, Communities and Families and 2014 Communities.