The Forward Trust
The Forward Trust delivers a range of services in communities and prisons. They support over 30,000 people in the south east of England, East Anglia, Yorkshire and the West Midlands. The charity is proud that around 40% of its workforce has lived experience of the issues they are tackling.
The charity receives public funding for its core services in prisons and communities. These include drug and alcohol treatment, mental health services and housing. They have to fundraise for their range of wrap-around intensive support for people in recovery, including their Moving Parents and Children Together (M-PACT) programme.
M-PACT is a structured programme which works with families where at least one parent struggles with substance misuse. For many families impacted by addiction, M-PACT offers an opportunity for change. An external evaluation of the programme shows that 80% of families reported improvements in family functioning and coping mechanisms. The evaluation recommended that M-PACT should be rolled out to a larger area and in different settings to reach more families.
Without the support of the Garfield Weston Foundation we would not have been able to extend our reach as far as we have this year. M-PACT is an evidenced-based programme which puts children and young people at the heart of it. By taking a whole family approach to addiction we know M-PACT can improve global family functioning, communication, and coping strategies. It is also vitally important we continue to identify areas for improvement, considering the latest research and best practice to ensure M-PACT can meet the diverse needs of the families we support. We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to the foundation for enabling us to continue this vital work.
The Forward Trust applied to us for a project grant to help expand M-PACT. They wanted to support over 1,0000 families and over 1,5000 children affected by parental addiction by 2024. They included an ambitious but achievable plan to expand to areas of the country where the charity had been working with other grassroots organisations. The work included developing partnerships, researching referral opportunities, recruiting new family workers and training. Forward also included plans to trial the use of M-PACT with families affected by parental gambling. Forward showed a good fundraising strategy which doesn’t rely heavily on any one funding source. We were happy to make a grant to help support the expansion of this important work.