Turn2us - to access benefits & grants.

The Turn2us helpline

The Turn2us helpline is a free, confidential and independent service for people who do not have internet access or need help to use it. The service helps people in financial access the money available to them in welfare benefits and charitable grants.

On this page you can find out more about how the helpline works.

Index

• How the Turn2us helpline service can help you
  • Individuals
  • Intermediaries
  • Charitable Funds
  • If you need advice
• Contacting the helpline
• Service provision: what you can expert from us
  • Call signposting and referral
  • Confidentiality
  • Data protection
  • Feedback
  • If you have a speech, hearing or language difficulty
  • Policies
  • Protecting our staff
  • Recording calls
• What people are saying about our helpline
• Case studies wanted

How Turn2us helpline service can help you

The Turn2us helpline gives information about the following subjects using resources available on the Turn2us website:

• Benefits including help to use the Turn2us Benefits Calculator
• Grants including help to use the Turn2us Grants Search
• Managing money issues
• Finding a local adviser using the Turn2us Find an Adviser tool

Individuals

If you are not able to access our services on this website, you can speak to one of our helpline staff, who can:

• Check your entitlement for welfare benefits and provide  information on how to apply
• Undertake a grants search to find charitable funds that may be able to support you, based on your personal circumstances and background
• Support you with a grant enquiry and making an application to a charity
• Help you if you have a query about  using the Turn2us website.

Intermediaries

If you are an intermediary helping people in financial need, please pass on the Turn2us helpline number. Our helpline can also assist you if you do not have access to the internet or you have a query about using the Turn2us website, such as using your 'My Turn2us' intermediary account.

See also Information for Intermediaries

Charitable funds

If you are from a grant-giving charity, our helpline can support you with enquiries you have about our services, your profile on our website and your 'My Turn2us' account.

See also Charitable Funds User Guide

If you need advice

The giving of advice about your personal situation with regard to benefits, grants or managing money is outside the scope of our service. We give information that may refer to your situation, possible actions available to you and points to bear in mind.  If you would like advice, you can use the following resources on our website to find the help you need:

• Find an Adviser tool to find a local adviser
• Useful Links section which contains links to many organisations and services that users of our website may find helpful.

Contacting the helpline

Call us on: 0808 802 2000 (8am-8pm Monday-Friday)

Calls are free for all landlines and for major mobile network providers (including 'pay as you go' phones) - Orange, 3, Vodafone, T-Mobile, Virgin and O2 - charges may apply for other network users. Check with your supplier first. If your network does charge for the call and you are worried about the cost, our helpline can call you back. 

Email us at info@turn2us.org.uk

Fax us: 01443 827616

Write to us: Turn2us, Unit 9, Cefn Coed Parc, Nantgarw, Cardiff CF15 7QQ.

A translation service for people who have limited English is available through Language Line (link opens in a new window) .

A Text Relay service (link opens in a new window) is available for deaf people. 

Service provision: you can expect from us

Turn2us strives for high standards both as an employer and as a provider of services.  In so doing, Turn2us recognises the need to ensure that all telephone calls received and made by our helpline advisers are handled in an acceptable and appropriate manner.

• Our hours of service are from 8am until 8pm Monday to Friday each week.
• After authorised announcements, and in each 24-hour period, 90% of offered calls are answered within 15 seconds
• No more than 0.1% of callers receive an engaged tone 
• All callers waiting longer than 20 seconds receive an information message
• All callers are given a confidentiality statement.

Call signposting and referral

There will be some instances when your enquiry may be outside the scope of our service. We will try to signpost you to a relevant organisation. 

Confidentiality

Turn2us helpline advisers comply with the Turn2us Confidentiality Policy.  We advise callers of the confidential nature of our service and obtain consent before sharing information that may be needed in order to send a grant enquiry or apply for grants on your behalf.

In certain circumstances confidentiality may need to be broken. These are outlined in the Confidentiality Policy and our adviser will explain to you why they need to breach confidentiality.

Data protection

All personal information received from individuals from enquirers will be handled and recorded in accordance with the Turn2us Data Protection Policy. In particular, we follow the eight principles of good information handling:

1. Personal data will be obtained and processed fairly and lawfully
2. Personal data will only be held for specified and lawful purposes and not in any manner incompatible with those purposes. The purposes for which personal data are held is described in Turn2us’s entry in the Data Protection Register, and information will not be held for another purpose
3. Personal data will be relevant and only used in relation to the purposes for which it is held
4. Personal data will be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date
5. Personal data will not be kept for longer than is necessary for the purposes covered by the registration
6. Personal data will be processed in accordance with the data subject’s rights.  This means that the data will be made accessible to the person concerned and where appropriate the information will be corrected or erased
7. We will take security measures to:
   • Prevent unauthorised access to or alteration, disclosure or destruction of the personal information, and
   • Prevent accidental loss or destruction of the personal information
8. We will not transfer personal data to a country or territory outside the European Economic Area unless that country or territory ensures an adequate level of protection of the rights and freedoms of data subjects in relation to the processing of personal data.    

Feedback

We aim for high standards in our service delivery and welcome feedback from our users. If we have done something that you are pleased with, we’d like to hear about it. If you have a complaint, we’d like to know about so we can resolve it or do better next time. If you have a query or a suggestion for us to improve our service, please tell us about it.

You can make give us feedback;

• In writing
• By email 
• Phone
• By filling in our website feedback form
• Completing an email survey after you have phoned the Helpline
• Filling in our Compliments and Complaints form. 

Full details of the procedures we follow can be found by reading our Compliments and Complaints Policy.

If you have a speech, hearing or language difficulty

Please let the adviser know what actions they can take to best help you. We will use the most appropriate channel for you, for example TextRelay (link opens in a new window), Language Line (link opens in a new window), or email.

Policies

All enquiries received by our helpline are dealt in line with the following policies:

Protecting our staff

We do not tolerate abusive behaviour towards our staff

We take every measure to support our staff, and in cases of abusive behaviour, tone or language, we may terminate the call. In extreme cases, we will report such behaviour to a relevant authority, such as the Police, in accordance with the Confidentiality Policy and the Data Protection Policy.

Recording calls

All calls to and from the Turn2us Helpline are recorded to ensure accuracy and monitor our service. They are kept securely in a central store for three months, then deleted.

What people are saying about our helpline

"I like the fact that you can talk about your situation to a real person on the helpline as well as using the resources on the Turn2us website."

"A very efficient, friendly and professional response from the telephone responder. It left me more confident that a solution to my personal situation can be improved."

"When calling for help, I encountered a very kind and sympathetic service."

"Being apprehensive and hard of hearing, the assistant was understanding and spoke clearly. If I did not hear her properly, she was pleasant and repeated the question without embarrassing me. I felt at ease and a load lifted off my shoulder."

"The lady who rang me communicated in a very friendly, informative and professional way."

Case studies wanted: Can you help us?

We need your help to show our helpline's effectiveness and further develop the resources it offers.

If you use our helpline to obtain financial help, such as benefits and grants, please can you let us know the outcome.

This might include:

• Any welfare benefits you successfully applied for as a result of doing a benefits check
• Any grants that you were given by searching for and enquiring/applying to grant-giving charities using our grants search facility.

We are also looking for individuals who have found help for themselves and intermediaries who have found help for people they are working with by using Turn2us services and are willing to share their stories on our website and in forthcoming media and fundraising activities.

See our case studies page for more information.