Advice and Information
Get the support you needWe provide free, confidential, independent and impartial advice/casework to help individuals resolve their problems. Our service is available to everyone, regardless of ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual orientation or nationality. Our goal is to help everyone to find a way forward – whatever problems they face.
There are a number of ways we can support you with your issue. Here is a breakdown of specialist advice we can provide:
Welfare Benefits
Our welfare benefits advisors can support you with any queries you may have. This may include an income maximisation check, claiming benefits or any problems encountered whilst in receipt of benefits. Some further information can be found below.
We have specific funded projects that can support you with your benefit issues/queries, which are:
Click here for support with claiming or switching to Universal Credit
Click here if you require support for essentials such as food
Click here if you require benefit support and have been affected by cancer
We can also support with other benefit enquiries, please click the Get Help button to find out how
Money Advice
Funded by the Money and Pensions Service our Money Advice team are available to support you in discussing your debts and looking for a way forward.
This can include completion of a budget sheet, income maximisation, advice on enforcement options open to creditors and solutions to resolve your debts.
By giving you your options we enable you to make a decision on how you want to progress.
Some examples of support we can provide include:
Support to appy for a debt relief or order or bankruptcy
Advice on bailiff enforcement
Negotiating with creditors
Dealing with court orders such as county court judgments
Advice can be sought by contacting us, click the Get Help button below for ways to get in touch.
Housing
Under our legal aid contract we can provide advice if you are having problems with your home or landlord. This can include:
Harassment or illegal eviction from your landlord
Serious disrepair affecting the health of someone living there
Homelessness or being threatened with homelessness
Possession claims
Anti-Social behaviour injunctions
Eviction or repossession proceedings
If you are looking for Housing advice, click the Get Help button below for how to get in touch:
Community Care
We can provide advice or support if you or someone you care for has care needs or you struggle as a carer and you have needs.
Please see below for a range of issues we can provide assistance with:
Do you/someone you live with have a medical condition or disability?
We can help with;
- Getting assessments for you or the person you care for to ensure the correct facilities and support are in place.
- We can look at your housing suitability if you or a family member and you or they are not able to manage your property due to a health condition.
- We can look at Disability Facility Grants if they have been submitted to the Council or your Housing provider and there is a delay. Or you have been refused a Disability Facility Grant.
- We can advise or support you if you are struggling to care for your child should they have a disability and you are struggling
Are you worried about yourself/or someone else being discharged from hospital?
- We can advise or support if you/they are a hospital patient and you are to be discharged and you are homeless.
- We can advise or support you/them if you/they have been discharged home and have not been provided with aids/equipment and there is no care package in place.
Are you worried about support or have been refused services for yourself or someone else?
We can help with;
- Challenging decisions should you or the person you care for have been refused services.
- Challenging a support plan if it has been reduced.
- We can look if your charges are correct if you are asked to meet a contribution to your support plan.
- We can advise or support you if children Services, Education and Housing are not cooperating with each other, and they have been approached.
Relationships & Family
- We can advise or support you if you have no right to housing due to your immigration status and you can no longer live in the home of your spouse and you need to leave with your children,
- We can advise or support if you are a child or a child over 18 and are estranged from your family and you are in education and you are homeless.
Unsure if we can help you? Complete our referral form on our Get Help button. We will contact you within 5 working days and if we cannot support, we will signpost you to services that can.
Generalist Advice
We can also provide advice for the following areas:
Consumer
Family & Relationship
Employment
Immigration (up to Level 1 IAA)
Domestic Violence & Hate Crime
If you have a general enquiry that relates to any of the above you can get in touch with us using the Get Help button.