We are pleased to announce that Circle has been awarded £753,260 from the BIG Lottery Fund that will allow us to provide intensive support to families that are affected by parental substance misuse across Scotland.
Circle’s Operational Manager, Maura Daly, had this to say about the funding:
Circle is delighted to have received funding from Big Lottery’s Investing in Communities Fund. Circle supports some of Scotland’s most vulnerable families and this fund will enable us to support 240 families over the next two years. We aim to break the generational cycle of parental drug and alcohol use by intervening to provide alternative opportunities for families. Keeping children safe is not enough – we reach the most excluded to improve their life chances and develop their full potential. We do this before statutory services become involved; research shows that money invested at this early stage is more cost-effective and leads to better outcomes, shifting the balance of care and reducing the need for children to be looked after and accommodated.
This cannot be achieved in the short-term but rather requires intensive prolonged support. Our highly-skilled and experienced family support workers support parents through their recovery by focussing on all their emotional and health needs, not just their drug and alcohol use. We focus on strengths rather than deficits, assisting families to find solutions that work for them. This is worth the investment however as the impact ripples through communities: happy families equate to settled, supportive communities.
The funding will be used to operate over four local authority areas: City of Edinburgh, West Lothian, North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire.