Grant Funded Community Programmes

Leading Large Portfolio Projects

The Enable East team has significant experience of working within a grant funding environment, leading on grant applications and subsequent delivery of projects in a coproduction model, often alongside locally based delivery partners.

We Are Currently Delivering

This is a national project focused on raising participation in learning around numeracy, confidence in managing personal finances and attainment in Maths courses for adults aged 19 and over. We are currently funded to deliver activity in Essex (funded by Essex County Council), and Southend (funded by Southend City Council).

The Offer

At Enable East, the sessions we offer centre on Financial Wellbeing. We are part of an NHS trust specialising in Mental Health (Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust), our activity is always centred on making improvements to people’s wellbeing and resilience. By doing this, we aim to help our local communities thrive.

Our community-based, or online financial wellbeing sessions provide the opportunity for participants to receive the support they need in a format that suits them.

Participants must be 19+, based in Essex or Southend and not have a level 2 qualification (GCSE/O level) in maths

Outlined below is a summary of content that our programme offers. We’re very open to discussions about the desired approach for groups for example perhaps delivering a 4-5 hour session (with lots of breaks) with a 1:1 follow-up online or via telephone. We’re happy to adapt our model (within reason) to suit the needs of the participants. Our sessions are delivered in the community.

At least 8 participants are required for our community delivery option. We have a number of different locations in which we can host the sessions, or if you have the space we can come to you. All who complete the course and the 1:1 follow up will receive a certificate and a £10 supermarket voucher.

Session Content

Session 1 – Budgeting and Managing Your Monthly Finances – Activities such as planning your monthly finances, creating a simple budget, separating luxury from essential, maximising income and reducing expenditure, and comparing ‘what I think I spend’ vs. ‘the reality’. This session gives you the tools to effectively manage your spending.

Session 2 – The Relationship between Money and Wellbeing  – Focussing on creating positive relationships with money and acknowledging the impact of poor finances on your wellbeing. Exploring emotional spending, not buying more than you need, minimalism, how to manage income-related anxiety and creating sensible spending habits.

Signposting session  – This short, final session is designed to show participants what further help is available to them via signposting to other organisations.

1:1 Support Session  – Following off the back of the signposting session, this is very much a bespoke session that will be participant-led. The time will be spent receiving personalised support from the trainer, i.e. applying for ACL, Mental Health Support, and Peabody etc. The trainers could also provide ad-hoc guidance such as employment advice, CV-writing, interview prep and help completing job applications.

What to do next
If you’d like to find out more about getting involved yourself or, if you’d like to chat about how to arrange for us to come and work with a group of your clients/participants/volunteers/staff
Please contact epunft.enableeast@nhs.net or phone 07585886176

We Have Previously Delivered

Two Big Lottery Fund grants centred around wellbeing, across the east of England. The programmes ran from 2007-2011, and 2013-2015 and received funds totalling £6.6 million.

In 2017 we were also successful in our application for funding from the European Social Fund and National Lottery Community Fund. An initial grant of over £1.7 million was awarded to enable the development of an employability programme for people who are long term unemployed and experiencing mental health problems. The positive outcomes of the project meant that we were awarded a further two tranches of funding totalling over £3.5 million between 2017 and 2023.

Other grant funded activity has included successful delivery of CRFUK programme working with students to improve resilience, wellbeing and positively impact their transitions into level 3 education.  We have also recently worked in partnership with Essex County Council and Adult Community Learning to deliver ‘Evolve’, a project aimed at offering support to access employability services to those most isolated post Covid.