Grants

The charity’s sole purpose is to make grants to help families with a child or young adult (up to 20 years old) who is adopted or has special needs.

Grants We Provide

We will consider funding the following:

  • Art Therapy
  • Music Therapy
  • Cranial osteopathy
  • Audio Integration Training
  • Neuro-developmental Programme
  • Makaton sign language training
  • TEACCH training
  • Adoption UK training
  • Expert assessments for Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans (NOT including professional diagnosis of a condition).

This list is not exhaustive and we will consider requests for other help along similar lines. However, evidence and need are at the forefront of our funding decisions.

As a small charity, it is unlikely we will be able to grant the full costs requested by applicants, but we aim to give families an opportunity to make therapies more affordable.

We will not fund equipment or add to appeals/crowdfunding.

Applying For A Grant

You will need to complete the application form held on this website in order to apply for a grant. The form asks you to provide details which allow us to assess your application both in terms of the benefits to your family but also in relation to other applications we receive. Regretfully, our funds are limited and we are not able to provide grants to all who apply, irrespective of how deserving they are.

The details we need you to provide fall into the following categories:

  • Contact information and family background
  • Beneficiary details
  • Grant information: type of grant applied for, amount of grant and information on service provider
  • Details of household income, which should include all benefits/maintenance payments.

How We Assess Applications

We assess applications three times each year: at the end of January, the end of May and the end of September. After carefully reviewing the information on the forms we generate a shortlist of applications for which we are able to award a grant.

We will then contact shortlisted applicants to request further documentation to verify the information on the application form (e.g. bank statement, proof of diagnosis). Such documentation needs to be posted to us as certified copies (which will be returned to you). The gov.uk website provides information on how to make certified copies. The Post Office also provides this service. We cannot accept emailed or (uncertified) photocopy documents.

We will also contact the service provider to confirm that they are able to accept the grant via our purchase order/invoicing terms. We require Service Providers to have a clear safeguarding policy and to belong to a nationally recognised professional body as appropriate.

We will inform all applicants by email if their application has been successful or not.

Grants must be taken up within 3 months or they will be withdrawn, unless specific arrangements are agreed at the time the grant is awarded.

Note that we do not pay the grants to applicants – only to the nominated service provider.

Application Process Timeline

The following table shows the timeline for the assessment process. Note that all dates are for guidance only and may vary. For example, informing applicants of the outcome of their application may occur more quickly if all supporting documentation is received earlier than anticipated.

Period
1
Period
2
Period
3
31st January31st May30th SeptemberDeadline for applications for current period.
Applications are assessed and a shortlist generated. Shortlisted applicants will be asked to provide supporting documentation.
31st March31st July30th NovemberAll applicants will be informed whether they have been successful or not.
Successful applicants will need to arrange date(s) with the service provider so that a purchase order can be raised (which is effectively the grant).
30th June31st October28th FebruaryAny grant not taken up will be withdrawn.

Grant Application Rules

The application form contains more detailed rules/guidelines on the application process and you will be required to indicate you accept them when filling it out.