We support on average 25-40 clients a day during our office hours with booked appointments for form filling and benefit appeals, housing benefit support, housing register, bidding on properties, referrals to Social Services for Occupational Therapist assessments and Care Managers. We also offer support from client referrals from the local jobcentres, Ageless Thanet, Age UK, Carers Support, Porchlight, Peabody’s, Kent County Council and many others.
Our volunteers that are now working with us have previously been clients and have had such a positive experience they have decided to volunteer with us to be able to offer the help to others that we offered them. Knowing that we have inspired others to be involved with the Disability Drop-In Centre is rewarding. All the volunteers with the Disability Drop-In Centre have disabilities and each have their own unique story.
Some of the families and individual clients that we deal with are struggling with homeless, benefit sanctions, loss of finance, debt and lacking in support especially with Mental Health as well as other disabilities. Clients that are battling with losing their disability benefits or their homes are left without the care and support that they need. Disability Drop-In Centre’s support that is offered throughout Thanet and surrounding areas works to help with the issues that are faced.
For the last 12 months the Disability Drop-In Centre have had 6 volunteers working for a total of 154 hours a week. The demand for the services that we provide has increased and we are looking to continue our service for another 12 months or more. Although our volunteers provide the service in the Thanet area we are supporting clients further afield, so mainly we work with people in Kent from our Drop-In Centre but we also receive calls from people in other parts of the UK; and this work represents about 20% of our caseload. As well as delivering our advice and support services, we are also hoping to train additional volunteers to meet with the current demand.
DDIC also looks to address the local community’s issues whether applications for benefits, appeals to tribunal along with housing, homelessness and support bidding for properties. Another area where we are seeing a greater need for support is debt management and we can work very closely with individuals on Budget Plans, Financial Statement Summaries, Income and Expenditure forms and ways to reduce their debt.
Contact us for further information about the range of services we offer.