Cumbria Community Foundation - Furness: Opportunities and Challenges 2021

F U R N E S S – O P P O R T U N I T I E S & C H A L L E N G E S 15 Salvation Army Lt Jonny Whitmore took over the running of the Barrow Salvation Army last year with his wife, Lt Kat Whitmore. He said: “We are first and foremost a Christian organisation, but also a social connection for people. We try to focus on emergency care relief for people in crisis - if they need a shower, some food or some clothing - but then we try to refer them on to agencies for that longer-term support. “We can offer wider support, volunteering, and helping people back into work, and that message is maybe lost a little.” “Quite often when people have been given housing, they have no furniture, so we’ve provided a few families with what they need to make the house suitable for them or their children. “There’s been a lot of working with others, avoiding duplicating services and plugging the gaps since we arrived in Barrow, which has been great.” “The main things that people come to us for are issues with their benefits, whether that’s them being sanctioned or their payments delayed, meaning they need help from food banks and things like that.” Love Barrow Families Love Barrow Families works with families who experience multiple issues and problems including poverty, domestic violence, drug and alcohol addiction, and mental health issues. Working together with families to create their own solutions, the not-for-profit organisation delivers services in a way that recognises the strengths all families have. Alison Tooby, Love Barrow Families’ executive director and lead social worker, said: “We work with families to try to understand the whole picture and do the best we can to provide the right sort of help and support to everyone.” Having been founded in 2013, four years later Love Barrow Families became a not-for-profit Community Interest Company. It brought a team of workers from the local authority’s children’s services, adult social care, and child, adolescent and adult mental health services together into a service for entire families. Mainly focusing on the most deprived wards across Barrow, the team also works with those with learning needs and people who are lonely. Alison added: “Our families that we work with may have struggles, but they also have experiences that they can pass on and share with other families. We have an expectation that families will give as well as receive. “Our philosophy is very much about having all our services under one roof, and providing a comprehensive service that covers from birth to old age. Where we differ from other agencies is that we’re not offering a programme, it’s about looking at what is a family, and what does that family need - and the idea is what services and support can we offer that family? “Many families that come to us have been around the system, so we believe in getting it right first time. What’s important is that we listen to them, and it’s about a whole family approach.”