Buttle UK’s Chances for Children Grants programme is designed to provide items and activities to help improve the social and emotional wellbeing of children and young people and improve their opportunities to engage in education, learning and employment.
Chances for Children will fund holistic packages of support for individual vulnerable children and young people that can include, for example (please note this is not an exclusive list):
o Boarding school fees for children who are unable to stay in their family home.
o Clothing and school uniforms.
o Family activities.
o Items and activities to support learning and development such as laptops, books, wi-fi, educational toys, tuition etc.
o Items for children/young people’s bedrooms.
o Other household items that are not available from other sources such as Emergency Essentials or Local Authority scheme, etc., and
o Social, sporting and leisure activities.
Eligible children and young people must meet all of the following criteria to apply for a grant:
o Be a child or young person aged 18 and under if living with parent/carer, or 20 and under if living independently with little or no support from their family.
o Be living on a low income and experiencing financial hardship.
o Have experienced a crisis that has recently had a significant and enduring impact on their social wellbeing, their emotional wellbeing and their educational engagement, and
o The family/young person must have recently taken action to improve their situation, are actively engaging with support and are moving on from the crisis.
Applications are only accepted from frontline professionals (such as a representative of a registered charity, housing association or public sector organisation) working closely with the child or young person in question. The professional will be expected to have carried out at least one home visit and made a full assessment of the child/young person’s needs. The professional will also need to supervise grant spend, upload receipts and complete an evaluation report.
Grants of up to £2,000 are available with no matched funding contribution.
Further information, guidance and an online application is available on the Buttle UK website, where a useful YouTube video about the programme and how to apply can also be found.
Applications – which must be made by a frontline professional on behalf of a child or young person - may be made at any time.
