Style Acre celebrates after receiving £142,992 of National Lottery Funding to support their Work Programme

Local charity Style Acre are celebrating after being awarded £142,992 over three years in National Lottery funding for its Work Programme that supports adults with learning disabilities and or autism to find volunteer and work opportunities in Oxfordshire.

The charity supports over 270 adults with learning disabilities and or autism through supported living houses, three community hubs and five social enterprises where they provide work and volunteer opportunities for the people they support.

The Work Programme gives personalised support to adults with a learning disability to find and keep work and volunteering placements. It promotes social inclusion for adults with learning disabilities who often need help to access the services and opportunities that everyone else takes for granted, whether this be healthcare, leisure activities, volunteering or working.

The Work Programme gives people choices around working and volunteering, support to achieve work goals, and helps them improve their skills and wellbeing and to be valued and included in workplaces and their local area.

People with a learning disability do not have the same opportunities to work and volunteer as most people; they miss out on employment related benefits such as developing skills, learning new things, a sense of purpose and social contact. They have work and volunteering aspirations, but they often need support to fulfil them.

Chris Ingram, Chief Executive of Style Acre said, “We are delighted to have received this funding from the National Lottery Community Fund. This grant will help us to sustain and create work and volunteering opportunities so people we support can fulfil their potential and achieve their work goals. We can’t wait to see what people will accomplish through work and volunteering over the next 3 years.”

The Work Programme currently have 121 people in 207 voluntary or paid work placements across 5 social enterprises and 56 external organisations. The funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, which distributes money raised by National Lottery players for good causes and is the largest community funder in the UK, will secure the programme over the next 3 years and will enable Style Acre to grow the programme, helping more people to work and or volunteer, increase the number of placements each year and enable them to implement a mentoring programme and launch accessible employment support tools.

 

The National Lottery Community Fund recently launched its strategy, ‘It starts with community’, which will underpin its efforts to distribute at least £4 billion of National Lottery funding by 2030.

As part of this, the funder has four key missions, which are to support communities to come together, be environmentally sustainable, help children and young people thrive and enable people to live healthier lives.

National Lottery players raise over £30 million a week for good causes across the UK. Thanks to them, last year (2023/24) The National Lottery Community Fund awarded over half a billion pounds (£686.3 million) of life-changing funding to communities across the UK, supporting over 13,700 projects to turn their great ideas into reality.

To find out more visit www.TNLCommunityFund.org.uk.