To enable our charity to continue providing our vital outreach service to the elderly and disabled people within the Tavistock community.
by TASS in Tavistock, England, United Kingdom
About Us: Tavistock Area Support Services (TASS) is a local registered charity that has been providing a wide range of services to support both elderly people and adults with disabilities within our community for nearly 40 years, enabling them to improve their health and wellbeing by connecting people with others and decreasing social isolation and promoting independence.
We do this by offering many different activities, clubs, and support groups, we have TASS Transport which operates a volunteer car service for hospital appointments, minibuses for hire for local groups and a wheelchair adapted Berlingo. We have a wheelchair and electric scooter hire through our TASS mobility, a Befriending and telephone befriending service and our Outreach service which provides vital support to access benefits including home visits for housebound clients.
Our work is staffed by a very small team, and therefore we rely on the ongoing support of our volunteers to run most of our activities and services. To be able to continue offering these vital services, we depend solely on donations and grants.
Our Current Aim: We are currently seeking funding to be able to continue to run our Outreach project, the already overstretched service is continuously growing, especially during this cost of living crisis. This vital service provides support to self referrals and referrals from local social care services. The co-ordinator discusses assessments, available support, information, benefits and healthy living advice, and signposting to other services, by post, email, telephone and in person when the client is housebound. They complete and send forms for client benefits, allowances and DWP, maintain records and liaises with social services, medical professionals, fire service and other government bodies when required. They try to recruit, train and supervise outreach volunteers. Stays up to date with local enterprises and government changes.
To cover our clients needs, we need to secure enough funding to pay the wages and the expenses of our Outreach Co-ordinator, with the hope we can increase their weekly hours or employ an additional member of staff, in order to cover the high demand of referrals.