Helplines receive a funding lifeline

Charities will receive a share of £12 million from the National Emergencies Trust’s coronavirus appeal to help run helpline services for people disproportionately affected by the pandemic.

Age UK, Heads To ge ther and Shelter are the latest groups to receive funding to help them support high-risk groups across the UK. Some £1.5m will help support Age UK’S national advice line, website and telephone friendship services and the Silver Line helpline.

Housing and homelessness charity Shelter will receive £1.47m to employ 31 new advisers for its emergency helplines in Scotland and England and for its partners in Wales and Northern Ireland.

The Heads Together co alit ion, which includes the mental health charity Mind, will receive £1.5m to support Mind’s infoline and web support.

The funding will also go towards the coalition’s upcoming campaign encouraging people to seek help.

More than half of the seven million people estimated to seek charity help in the next year will be doing so for the first time.