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Social Enterprise Support Fund, granted to support our families during COVID-19

We'd like to say a big thank you to the Social Enterprise Support Fund, distributed by the School for Social Entrepreneurs, for awarding us a grant! We'd also like to thank National Lottery players for making this possible.

The Social Enterprise Support Fund provides essential financial support to help social enterprises during COVID-19. It will help social enterprises to meet additional demands, change the way they work, make heir spaces COVID-secure, and manage liquidity during the next six months.

The Social Enterprise Support Fund was established in partnership by The National Lottery Community Fund and five social enterprise support agencies: Big Issue Invest, The Key Fund, Resonance, the School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) and UnLtd with support from CAF Venturesome, the Young Foundation and Ashoka.

Thanks to National Lottery players, £18.7 million of National Lottery funding has been committed to the fund to be used to provide grants to social enterprise organizations that are best placed to support local, vulnerable communities in response to the COVID-19 crisis.

Autism Dogs CIC trainer during a college visit

This grant will be used to help us to support our families during COVID-19. Changes and unknowns are very hard for autistic people to cope with, and the impact of COVID-19 has been devastating for our families. The disruption of routines due to being unable to visit family or friends or attend school - as well as all of the changes that have been implemented in public places - has caused our clients to feel more anxious, and has also left them feeling totally isolated.  

Bespoke PPE to keep our trainers and clients safe

Our team of trainers provide a lifeline of reassurance and support, however we have had to rethink how we can continue to support clients while keeping both ourselves and the clients safe.

This grant from the Social Enterprise Support Fund has enabled us to provide specialist training to our trainers to help them to know how to stay safe while delivering vital face-to-face training both here at the farm and within clients' homes, as well as enabling us to purchase bespoke PPE to keep both our trainers and clients safe during the training sessions.

This has allowed us to continue delivering our vital training across the country, and try to help our clients as much as we can during this difficult time!

Autism Dogs CIC public access training

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