The Christmas festivities seem a long time away, as life for our families has settled back to their ongoing struggles. Despite our help with extra food and presents at Christmas, many families experienced a particularly difficult time with energy costs in the cold weather, so it was a real relief

for them to have access to our winter fuel fund which is so generously supported by many individuals. The continued rise in general prices across food, energy and petrol is of great concern still, and practitioners are spending a lot of time helping families with budgeting and accessing other sources of support and advice. We are very fortunate to have very close links with CAP, Citizens’ Advice Bureau and other more local groups which can give families specialised advice.

We hope shortly to be able to announce new members of staff across various areas of our work, following the departures of valued team members at the end of last year and the need to expand our back-office team to support the frontline work.

Please do look on our website and social media pages for information about upcoming events – we will soon be publishing this year’s Open Garden calendar as well as many fundraising events which may be local to you and we hope you feel able to support.

December’s work in numbers

  • 309 individual visits and 720 calls with families supporting 278 adults and 314 children
  • 33 supported meetings with other agencies
  • 74 group sessions held supporting 788 parents and 407 children
  • 150 food deliveries made, plus 180 Christmas hampers

Prayer points

  • Pray for comfort for those families and staff who have lost loved ones in recent weeks
  • Give thanks for the generosity of many individuals and organisations over the Christmas period
  • Pray that new contacts will help us to increase our visibility across Sussex and that more families will become aware of our services

Nikki Kerr, FSW Director of Fundraising and Marketing


Website: https://www.familysupportwork.org/
Email: nikki@familysupportwork.org.uk