Our work
Turn2us helps people in financial need gain access to welfare
benefits, charitable grants and other financial help – online, by
phone and face to face through our partner organisations.
It is part of Elizabeth Finn Care, a charity registered in
England and Wales: 207812 and Scotland: SC040987.
Index
Who we are and what we do
Turn2us helps people in financial need gain access to welfare
benefits, charitable grants and other financial help – online, by
phone and face to face through our partner organisations.
The Turn2us website brings together an easy to use Benefits
Calculator and a Grants Search
database giving access to over 3,000 charitable funds – all
available through http://www.turn2us.org.uk/.
For individuals who are not able to access the website, our
freephone helpline is open all year from 8.00 am to 8.00 pm Mondays
to Fridays on 0808 802 2000.
We also provide specific services for
intermediaries and charitable funds.
Our service is:
- Free
- Comprehensive and reliable
- All in one place
- Based on highly credible sources
- Confidential
- Secure
We were set up in 2007 and are part of Elizabeth Finn Care, a
charity registered in England and Wales: 207812 and Scotland:
SC040987.
Our purpose, aims and values
We hear it practically every day – 13 million
people live in poverty in the UK, including 3.6 million
children – and the numbers are rising.
The reasons why people experience financial hardship are
complex.
Stressful life situations, such as bereavement, job loss, family
breakdown, ill health, disability and caring for someone, are often
significant factors, especially if these changes mean someone is no
longer able to work.
The mounting costs of living and the effects of the UK’s current
economic situation have also had enormous effects on personal
finances, causing many people to struggle to make ends meet.
Yet one issue remains simple. Funds exist to help people –
through welfare benefits, grants and other financial help – but
access to them continues to be a frustrating barrier for many
individuals, especially those on low incomes who are often hardest
hit.
As concern grows around the mounting cost of living, the rise of
child poverty and the ‘credit crunch’, the need for a service to
help people access the funds they desperately need becomes
increasingly relevant and urgent. This is what Turn2us
provides.
Our aims
Turn2us aims to ensure that:
- More people are aware of, and have access to, welfare benefits
and grants
- Grant-giving and public organisations are able to distribute
funds to those in need more effectively
- The voices of people in need are heard.
Our values
Six key values underpin our work. We are:
Passionate: about alleviating financial need in
the UK.
Collaborative: we aim to work with a range of
partners from the third, public and private sectors to meet the
needs of people living in poverty.
Inclusive: we aim to ensure that our services
are accessible to the people who need them.
Effective: we aim to provide the highest
quality resources and services.
Responsive: we aim to listen to and respond to
the needs of the users of our services and our stakeholders through
our advisory boards and targeted research.
Impartial: we aim to provide services based on
evidence and knowledge.
Individuals and Turn2us
If you are an individual seeking help for yourself or someone
close to you, Turn2us aims to help you access the money available
to you. For the first time, in one place on our website, you can
find information and tools to help you find the support, based on
your specific needs and circumstances. You can also register for a
personal ‘My Turn2us’ account, which allows you to make
confidential enquiries and applications directly to many of the
grant-giving charities that you identify using our Grants Search
database.
For more information, see Using the
Turn2us website, Beginner's guide
to benefits and Are you new to
grants?
Intermediaries and Turn2us
If you are an intermediary – one of the
thousands of advisers, welfare officers, support workers and
volunteer home visitors who have regular face-to-face contact with
people in financial need – Turn2us can help you find the right
resources to support the people you are working with. You can also
store individuals’ details and applications in your confidential
Turn2us intermediary account, enabling you to access and update
files as you need to.
See Information for Intermediaries
for more information about Turn2us intermediary accounts and
the services we offer you.
We also work in partnership with many organisations to develop
projects and services involving intermediaries. See Projects for more information.
Charitable funds and Turn2us
If you are a charity that gives grants to
individuals, Turn2us provides a comprehensive, accessible
service that can help you increase your access to people who could
benefit from your support, especially those who are hard to reach.
Our flexible system allows you to tailor your charity’s details to
suit your needs and update them as necessary. Enquiries and
applications can be accepted online or directly through the Turn2us
website. You can also access lists of everyone who has applied to
you via Turn2us and check the current status of any requests for
help.
See information for
charities for more information on Turn2us charitable funds
accounts and the services we offer you.
The Turn2us website
Our accessible website – http://www.turn2us.org.uk/ – is a
comprehensive and invaluable resource, which provides information
on benefits and grants all in one place. It is designed to help
people find appropriate sources of financial support, quickly and
easily, based on their particular needs and circumstances.
Features include:
- A Benefits Calculator that
helps people ensure that they are receiving all the welfare
benefits they are entitled to
- A Grants Search containing details of over
3,000 charitable funds (national, regional and local) that may be
able to give financial support and other services
- A confidential ‘My Turn2us’ online
account that can be used to make enquiries and
applications to grant-giving charities
- Information and resources on a wide range of
subjects related to welfare benefits, grants and managing
money
- A Find an Adviser tool to help users find
local advisers, according to need
- A monthly Ask an Expert feature to enable
website users to a panel of experts their questions on
topics relating to benefits, grants or managing
money.
Shaw Trust Web Accreditation
The Turn2us website has been awarded Web
Accreditation for accessibility by the Shaw Trust. To achieve this
award, the Turn2us website underwent a fully comprehensive web
accessibility audit involving over 60 hours of rigorous user
testing against the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C's) Web
Accessibility Content Guidelines (WCAG 1.0, WCAG .2.0) and Section
508. The Shaw Trust accreditation is the most comprehensive
accessibility audit service available and is endorsed by The Guild
of Accessible Web Designers (GAWDS). Any site carrying this mark
has been tested by people with a wide range of disabilities and
found to be accessible and WAI AA compliant.
See also Accessibility
Plain English Campaign Internet Crystal
Mark
The Turn2us website has been awarded the Plain
English Campaign Internet Crystal Mark. This means the Plain
English Campaign have checked that the site is clearly written
and easy to use. They also review the site annually to make sure it
keeps to their standards..
All Turn2us content should conform to the Turn2us_editorial_guidelines_(PDF_file_size_227kb)
Website security
The website is secured via the SSL protocol,
which is the industry standard for communications between users and
websites. This means that any information sent via an SSL
connection is protected by encryption to prevent eavesdropping and
tampering with transmitted data.
Turn2us holds a unique web server certificate
(also known as a secure server certificate or SSL certificate),
which is required to initialise each SSL session. Users can see
when a secure SSL session has begun. Their browser will display a
little gold padlock and the address bar will begin with ‘https’
rather than ‘http’.
Data Protection and Confidentiality
See our Confidentiality, Data Protection
and Website Privacy Policies
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 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 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.
Email enquiries to us
Your email will be acknowledged within one working day and
answered within two working days.
Where we need to refer to a third party, a reply will be sent
within three working days.
Where the enquiry is outside the scope of our service, we will
signpost you to whichever services we think may be relevant for
you.
Postal enquiries to us
We will respond to postal enquiries within two working days
of receipt of your letter.
Where we need to refer to a third party, a reply will be posted
within three working days.
Where the enquiry is outside the scope of our service, we will
signpost you to whichever services we think may be relevant for
you.
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.
Caller numbers
When you telephone our helpline, the caller number will be
showing to the adviser. This will not be used by them without your
permission, for example to call you back.
If you do not wish your number to be shown, please dial 141
before the helpline number and this will ensure that the number is
not visible to the helpline advisers.
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:
- Personal data will be obtained and processed
fairly and lawfully
- 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
- Personal data will be relevant and only used
in relation to the purposes for which it is held
- Personal data will be accurate and, where
necessary, kept up to date
- Personal data will not be kept for longer
than is necessary for the purposes covered by the registration
- 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
- 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
- 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;
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."
Our partnerships
We believe that no single individual or
organisation can help the millions of people who are in financial
need. It is only by working in partnership that we can develop our
services and ensure that we reach all those who could benefit from
them.
Strategic Development Group
The members of our Strategic Development Group are
representatives of organisations with an interest and expertise in
financial exclusion, charitable grant giving and welfare benefits.
They provide us with advice and act as our ambassadors.
Current members are:
Advice UK (link opens in a
new window)
Advice UK is the largest UK support network of advice giving
organisations. Its services include management support,
insurance, training, money advice and information.
Association of Charitable
Organisations (ACO) (link opens in a new window)
ACO represents over 200 charities offering aid and guidance to
individuals in needs. It helps them to work together to share and
co-ordinate their activities to increase the numbers of people in
need they help.
Child Poverty Action Group
(CPAG) (link opens in a new window)
CPAG is the leading charity campaigning for the abolition of child
poverty in the UK and for a better deal for families and children
with low incomes. It aims to raise awareness of the causes, extent,
nature and impact of poverty, and strategies for its eradication;
bring about positive policy changes for families with children in
poverty; and enable those eligible for income maintenance to have
access to their full entitlement.
Citizens Advice
(link opens in a new window)
Citizens Advice helps people to resolve their legal, money and
other problems by providing free information and advice from 3,300
locations using 20,000 volunteers. They also have a
comprehensive online
advice guide (opens in a new window).
Elizabeth Finn
Care (link opens in a new window)
Turn2us is part of the Elizabeth Finn Care family - a leading
direct grant-giving charity specifically dedicated to helping
people in financial need . For over 100 years, it has been giving
practical and financial support to people from a wide range of
backgrounds who have fallen into financial need because of age,
physical or mental illness, family breakdown, bereavement or
redundancy.
Home-Start UK (link
opens in a new window)
Home-Start UK is a leading family support organisation, offering
support friendship and practical help to parents with young
children in local communities throughout the UK and with British
Forces in Germany and Cyprus.
Money Advice Trust
(link opens in a new window)
The Money Advice Trust aims to reduce the unmanageable debt of UK
consumers by working with the government, private sector and UK’s
leading money advice agencies to increase the availability and
quantity of money advice as well as improve its efficiency and
effectiveness. It runs two free, independent money advice helplines
for people with debt problems – National Debtline (link opens
in a new window) and Business Debtline (link opens in a new
window).
Working with intermediaries
Working with intermediaries, i.e. the thousands of advisers,
support workers, volunteer home visitors or welfare officers who
have regular face-to-face contact with people in financial need, is
a fundamental part of Turn2us’s work.
Read about our initiatives working with
intermediaries
Building partnerships
If you are an individual or organisation from the voluntary,
public or private sectors, there are many ways in which you could
work with us to become part of the solution we offer.
You could help us by:
- Funding service development and delivery
- Helping us promote Turn2us and disseminate our materials
- Donating expertise, services or products
If you are interested in working with us, contact Alison Taylor, Turn2us
Director, for more information.
Messages of support
Turn2us’s groundbreaking new service to help the millions of
people in financial need in the UK has received support from many
influential people:
“The development and establishment of Turn2us is the most
significant third sector development for many years.”
Stuart Etherington, Chief Executive, National Council for
Voluntary Organisations (NCVO)
‘Thousands of intermediaries and advisers across the UK do a
fantastic job to support people in desperate financial need
everyday. Turn2us will help them further support people to maximise
their income and will prove to be an invaluable source of
information for everyone.’
Steve Johnson, Chief Executive, Advice UK
‘Thousands of charities exist that give grants to people in
financial need, but there is a need to increase awareness of them
and create a place for people to search and apply for suitable
grants. As Chair of Benevolence Today, I welcome this
initiative as it is a good example of the charity sector working
together to achieve improved impact on the lives of those in need.
Turn2us is an essential bridge between people struggling with money
and the charities that can fund them. Through Turn2us, charities
will have the opportunity to let the public, and intermediaries and
advisers, know if they have funds available and communicate quickly
and efficiently with people that meet their giving criteria.'
Fred Payne, Chief Executive, The Bank Workers
Charity - Support for bank staff
Turn2us - to access benefits & grants.
