Trevi is awarded £100,000 from Barclays 100×100 uk covid-19 community aid package
Trevi has today announced it is one of the charities selected by Barclays 100×100 UK Covid-19 Community Relief Programme to receive £100,000 towards covid-19 related costs.
Back in April, Barclays announced a £100m Community Aid Package to support charities that are helping people and communities most impacted by COVID-19. £10m of this funding has been donated through their 100×100 UK COVID-19 Community Relief Programme, with Trevi being one of 100 UK charities each receiving a donation of £100k, allowing their important work to continue.
Trevi was chosen by a selection committee for the meaningful work they are doing with women and children in need.
Trevi is a nationally award-winning women’s charity. Trevi began in 1993, known as Trevi House. The charity was born from the desire of four Drug and Alcohol workers (including the late Roma French, mother of Dawn French) in Plymouth to create a unique environment for women and their children experiencing drug and alcohol misuse issues to grow and create positive futures.
Supporting more than 550 women and children per year, Trevi provides safe and nurturing spaces for women and their families to heal, grow and thrive. Trevi’s vision is for a society where all women in recovery can access good quality, psychologically informed, gender-based interventions without apology.
Today, Trevi’s work is delivered across three key centres:
Jasmine Mother’s Recovery
A child is taken into care every 16 minutes, with only 1 in 10 being reunited with their mother. Jasmine’s dedicated and expert team works with each mother to help her break her addiction for good and to be the best mother she can be. And the results speak for themselves: 98% of women who go to Jasmine Mother’s Recovery successfully detox and almost 8 out of 10 children get to stay with their mother.
Jasmine Mother’s Recovery takes referrals from across the UK and can accommodate up to 10 women and their children. Jasmine is a trauma informed service; as well as working with the presenting issues of substance misuse / parenting concerns, the centre aims to address the underlying trauma that many women have experienced. Facilities include eight residential rooms, two family apartments, a therapy lodge, and an Ofsted registered nursery for children to be looked after during therapy times.
Sunflower Women’s Centre
The Sunflower Women’s Centre is the only women’s centre in Plymouth, providing a safe hub for connection and hope. Every year, Sunflower supports and empowers more than 500 local women, many with complex needs and experience of trauma and abuse.
Sunflower offers a wrap-around therapeutic service for any woman in need in the City. This could include addictions, mental well-being, health, criminogenic behaviours, domestic abuse, and social isolation.
The compassionate and aspirational team of Sunflower Practitioners ensures a personalised package of support which includes accredited training, group work, counselling, creative therapies, drop-in women’s space, fitness classes, parenting support, peer mentoring and much more. Co-located partners, including Probation services, Department of Work and Pensions, Sexual health and other third sector agencies, ensure that Sunflower offers the range of support needed.
The centre is spread over 3 floors, complete with a 140m² health and wellbeing suite and trauma informed creche. Over the past 2 years, 90% of women supported by Sunflower say it has been a lifeline, with 75% able to move forward in life after support from Sunflower.
Daffodil Family Centre
Daffodil is Trevi’s residential parenting assessment centre, offering 12-week placements. Daffodil provides quality, psychologically informed assessments with purpose, placing the child at the centre of its work with a trauma informed approach.
Daffodil provides a safe and nurturing environment for families to ensure that each parent has a fair assessment of their parenting skills and capacity. The team works with a range of professionals to provide each family with individualised support, in line with their abilities, needs and background. Daffodil’s ambition is that whatever the outcome of the parenting assessment, the experience of the family will be one of transparent working, respectful practice, and collaboration.
Since the pandemic began, Trevi has maintained operations across all three centres. Dedicated staff at have continued to do all they can to keep their services running smoothly despite the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
At Jasmine Mother’s Recovery centre, the charity implemented a lockdown model early on whereby the most experienced staff members remained on site for 72-hour shifts. This has since reduced to 48-hours but has remained in place throughout the entire pandemic and has been imperative to minimise footfall in and out of the rehab so that the charity can protect the vulnerable women (including pregnant) and children under its care. Higher levels of screening for residents have been in place at admission and testing continues to be carried out at regular intervals.
In March, the Sunflower Women’s Centre quickly converted to a virtual women’s centre, moving as much as possible online. During the summer when the lockdown was relaxed, Sunflower opened back up to some socially distanced support. This was mainly because it experienced a rise in crisis type cases which could not be supported virtually – women experiencing higher levels of domestic abuse and severe isolation affecting mental health and recovery.
Sunflower’s training, groups and activities such as the Freedom Programme, Recovery Maintenance, Power Parenting, Creative Therapies, Mindfulness and Be: Active are all available online. Sunflower Practitioners have continued to run a weekly drop in space on Zoom, and daily 1-1 Zoom/ Telephone support appointments.
The Sunflower team also provided an outreach service, distributing survival packs to women across the city.
The money from Barclays 100×100 UK Covid-19 Community Relief Programme is essential to reduce the social and economic hardship linked to covid-19. The grant will be used to pay for the following activities managed by the charity:
⦁ Continue to provide residential rehab with high standards of infection-control for complex cases (money will specifically be used to cover the costs associated with the lockdown model)
⦁ Fully convert to a Virtual Women’s Centre
⦁ Launch a women’s Bursary Fund for emergency support i.e. fleeing domestic abuse, shelter, broken appliances etc.
⦁ Outreach support: survival-packs including sanitary/hygiene products, mindfulness and children’s activities, food parcels/vouchers
⦁ A device library-lending service to reduce the level of digital poverty experienced by women.
Hannah Shead, CEO of Trevi, said: “We are absolutely delighted about this fantastic donation from the Barclays 100×100 UK Covid-19 Community Relief Programme. We simply cannot express our gratitude enough. This year has been hugely challenging for us as a charity – the demand for all our services has been on a constant incline. We know that many women and children have been affected disproportionately by the pandemic within the context of social and economic factors. We are deeply concerned about what the winter holds however with this wonderful support from Barclays UK Covid-19 Relief Programme, we know that we can continue working tirelessly to support as many women and children in need as possible.”
Graham Austin, Barclays Head of SME, South West, said: “This crisis has had an unprecedented impact across the UK, and we know this is an incredibly challenging time for many in Plymouth. By reaching those most in need of support, local charities, such as Trevi have played a vital role in this crisis to date, and no doubt they will do going forward. As a proud member of our community, we are doing everything we can for our customers, clients and colleagues, and we hope that our partnership with Trevi will allow many others to access the help they need as this crisis develops.”
For more information about Trevi’s life changing services or to make a donation to its work, visit www.trevi.org.uk
