We have helped a number of cases this month with parents on extremely low incomes cope with the return to school and purchasing some items of school uniform. It is not something we make a habit of doing, but when you have families where they are faced with the choice of do they buy food or get the school uniform because they cannot afford both.
A family are expecting the birth of their child and are desperately trying to prepare for this. In the past, the mother has suffered with serious mental health issues, but this relationship has been stabilising for her. The new accommodation the mother is staying in does not have any carpeting, so we sent a small amount of money to be used to purchase a rug for the bedroom.
We sent some money to a mother of two, who is ill herself but is employed as a carer. She has been too ill to work, so her wages have stopped, plus her employer has mis-notified the DWP about the hours she’d work, meaning that her UC payments stopped. She has had to borrow money from her mother to buy food and the school uniforms but doesn’t have anything to top up her energy meters until her benefits payments are sorted out.