From June 2022 until present we’ve already supported the number of families from the previous financial year.
It’s only been 5 months into our third year as a community organisation and our hard working volunteers have done us proud by assessing, packing, delivering and supporting over 483 newborns this year aged 0 to 2 years and in some cases older with their own unique AngelBox packed with the very finest brand new items and we have to admit the hard work is paying off and we’re all seeing a significant positive impact in the lives of parents and newborns but sadly sometimes we witness things that shouldn’t exist in London and that no family or parent should go through as a human being.
The boroughs with the most families facing financial hardship have been predominantly based in:
- Brent (All wards)
- Westminster North
- Westminster South
- Hounslow
- Harrow
- Ealing
- Croydon
- Lambeth
- Lewisham
- Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea
- Hammersmith & Fulham
- Haringey
- Barnet
The most significant rise in demand for the AngelBox has been from referrals made by NHS midwives, health visitors, social workers and clinicians to support mainly newborns and twins of lone parents this is swiftly followed by local authority and community referrals.
Our teams have seen a steady rise in supporting extremely vulnerable lone parents who been made homeless due to fleeing abusive relationships or have suffered a traumatic experience from a form of violence or trafficking and as a result we’re seeing a 45% uptick in parents calling our 0800 number for a chat about daily life and the newborn as well as to request more visits from their volunteers.
As a result we’re now looking at ways to get accredited and further train our 0800 telephone and home volunteers so that they can professionally deal with home issues that really are affecting the parents of our beneficiaries such as housing, benefit advice and off course more mental health training.
Sadly there’s more grim news in our findings on home visits as a third of our AngelBox parents live without any furniture and with Universal Credit giving low advanced payments and borough resident funds oversubscribed and parents still waiting for a response after 6 months of applying it’s been really heartbreaking for the teams to digest so we’re looking at introducing a winter home-kit to help with the situation and begin trials from December 22.
Finally we’d like to say congratulations to all the parents who we have supported throughout the years for finally being properly settled in the UK. Trust us it’s been nail biting stuff conversing about dreaded home office appointments and “are they going to renew my residency permit” etc but finally to hear the word indefinite leave to remain is cause for much celebration and fanfare in the office and to know your newborn is now safely going to crawl their way into a life with school, friends and a fair chance at life without having to witness the pain and suffering you went through to get to this new chapter in life.
So congratulations mum’s, you know who you are!
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