A local charity that provides practical and meaningful advice and support to Tunbridge Wells Borough residents on any issue. We support over 6,000 clients a year that live in the borough and provide advice on a broad range of matters in particular, debt and money management, problems at work, help when relationships go wrong, help with welfare benefits issues, debunking bureaucracy, housing issues, law and rights and discrimination. We also collect data where injustice occurs to drive initiatives to effect change for the better. We are at the forefront of social policy change.
Our clients are anyone that lives in the borough that has a problem or concern. We are the "go to" resource for help and support in the region and last year the economic value of our volunteers in the borough was estimated to be over £600,000. Our service is particularly important to clients that, with the virtual abolition of legal aid for civil cases, would not have access to advice.
Because of the very wide range of issues that present to our advisers, no two days are the same and the working environment is welcoming and friendly.
A volunteer led organisation we have a large number of ways that we reach our clients including face to face advice sessions at our Tunbridge Wells and Cranbrook offices along with 3 permanent desks in the Tunbridge Wells Council Gateway. We also have a team of outreach workers that visit different parts of the borough through the week as well as a home visiting team that supports older people or those with mobility issues. We also provide advice by telephone, email and SKYPE. We are constantly looking for new ways to reach our clients and are very receptive to developing new initiatives.
We have over 110 volunteers throughout the borough that provide the client advice along with a small number of paid staff that that manage the charity on a day to day basis. We are very fortunate that our volunteers are very skilled and drawn from a number of different disciplines such as the legal, teaching and accountancy professions along with people with commercial business experience. We also run development programmes for undergraduates as part of our commitment to enhancing skills within the local community.
Apart from supporting clients and effecting positive policy change a key concern for us is to raise our profile within in the community particularly as a locally funded charity because we do not receive any central Goverment funding. We actively seek funding for one off projects along with more regular income streams and are very interested in developing our social media and bid writing teams. Our volunteers work either on a regular day a week basis or on special project work depending on their skills and availability.
