Northamptonshire charity promises to thrive post-Covid with £100,000 grant from National Lottery

A Northamptonshire charity has reopened and is promising to reshape and thrive post-Covid thanks to a £100,000 grant from National Lottery Community Fund.

Teamwork Trust – which supports autistic adults and adults with learning disabilities and mental health needs – responded to huge demands during lockdown to develop and deliver new ways to help people on their Living & Learning, counselling and wellbeing programmes.

The boost from the National Lottery Community Fund will enable teamwork leaders to safeguard the charity’s future, through a brand new and inclusive mix of hands-on, remote and digital support across all services.

Now that service-users have gradually returned to the three centres in Corby, Kettering and Wellingborough, John Bruce, strategic director, Teamwork Trust says it is clear the landscape for local adult social services has changed.

“We must use this significant pot of funding to reconfigure and restructure so that we can create even more options for people,” he said.

“More service-users than we expected chose to return to our centres when we reopened last month, and that was because the successful support packages we created during lockdown helped them feel confident, safe and reassured.

“We were continually praised by service-users, parents and carers and had some truly remarkable results and success stories, so we intend to take on board all that we have learned to review and change our support for those with learning disabilities, and mental health and wellbeing needs.

“We thank the National Lottery players for being able to give us stability during this exceptional period as we plan for how we will run post-Covid.”

One Teamwork service-user - Charlotte, who lives in a local supported living care home and attends Teamwork’s Kettering centre - says the charity’s remote and digital support gave her real hope and focus which she intends to build on now she is back. She is even hoping to start a college course.

“I am autistic and have bipolar, so there was a lot to take in when we first went into lockdown as it took me away from my usual routine, but I was very supported the whole time by Teamwork who visited or called me every day and sent activity packs. They helped me overcome my worries.” said Charlotte.

“Now I am back I feel like I want to do so much more. I want to go to college or uni one day to study nursing as I feel like I want to help others in the way that people have helped me. There’s been lots of really positive things to have come out of lockdown for me, and thanks to Teamwork Trust I have never felt so motivated.”