City youth charity benefits from dormant bank funds
A charity working with vulnerable young people in the Capital has been awarded almost £100,000 from the proceeds of dormant bank accounts.
Dean & Cauvin Young People’s Trust will receive £99,347 as part of a £1.5 million handout to 19 Scottish organisations from the Young Start programme.
Delivered by the National Lottery Community Fund, Young Start awards dormant bank account funding to projects that help young people reach their full potential.
Under the Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Act 2008, money in dormant bank accounts can be released to the National Lottery Community Fund for distribution to good causes across the UK.
Dormant accounts are defined by the Act as those which have seen no customer-initiated activity for at least 15 years.
Dean & Cauvin, a 300-year-old charity, provides a range of services to Edinburgh’s young people, including help with addiction and homelessness, support for young parents and help with family breakdowns.
Jay, aged 20, accessed the charity’s residential services with the help of her social worker when she was 19 and had just given birth to her baby boy, Bob.
“I was quite ill after giving birth to Bob – I had a blood clot and a collapsed lung, so I had to spend quite a bit of time in hospital. When I was better, I had nowhere to stay,” said Jay.
“There was no space with any of my family members, and having a six-week-old baby made it so much more urgent that I found a home. My social worker managed to find me a space at Cauvin House.”
Dean & Cauvin’s residential service – Cauvin House – provides accommodation to young parents and their children, as well as ongoing parenting support and assessment, to help keep families together.
One year after Jay moved into the shared accommodation, an individual flat became available for her, which she was able to transition into. And with the help of the charity, she is looking forward to the future and hopes to go back into education.