We’re now a month into lockdown and normal life seems a world away.
Firstly, we’d like to thank you for the overwhelming response we had to our pandemic appeal. It has given us more certainty for the future.
We are continuing to support clients in the best way we can.
Our team will work from home until things change, and we’ll be supporting our clients as they too stay at home. Clients who weren’t in one of our houses but were in need of a place to sleep, maybe due to an arrangement breaking down, are now able to access housing through the council. We have made sure all clients are getting enough food by working with the COVID response team set up by City of Sanctuary Sheffield, with Open Kitchen Social who are now delivering to our houses on a regular basis, and with food banks.
Our welfare payments have been increased by £5 per week for each client and they are being distributed monthly rather than weekly to reduce infection risk.
We continue to make welfare phone calls to check on the needs of our clients and we’re now working with a wide group of organisations, including Mulberry medical practice, to address mental wellbeing.
We have had lots of offers of support from our volunteers who are no longer able to continue their usual roles and from our wonderful supporters who are very aware of the situation of clients. If you would like to know what you could do to help we have set up a webpage with a list of useful actions and will follow this up on social media @assistsheffield to give further updates.
We do continue to need funds so if you are able to donate please visit our website at assistsheffield.org.uk/donate-assist
Stay safe & thank you!
From everyone at ASSIST