The National Lottery Fund – Benefitting All
Since the Ferryhill Ladder Centre opened in 2002 we have consistently geared our service delivery towards the needs of our communities. We pride ourselves on being part of our communities and we listen, adopting a very much community focused approach with regards to what and how we offer services.
With the support of the National Lottery Community Fund, we are delighted to announce that we can continue our work to build resilience across our communities and reduce the risk of poverty.
Covering the Ferryhill, Chilton, West Cornforth, Bishop Middleham and ‘rural east corridor’ (Trimdon, Fishburn and Sedgefield). Our Benefitting All Project provides: –
- Face to face advice and support to help people make new claims for benefits.
- Claim their correct benefit entitlements.
- Help with completing complex benefits forms.
- Support with appealing benefits decisions.
- Help access emergency food and fuel.
- Help accessing debt advice.
- Help with accessing support with housing issues.
- Digital Advice – training and support to enhance digital skills and digital literacy, with a focus on financial wellbeing but also digital skills and employability.
AAP Funding – No Poverty Project
During 2025/2026 our work around benefits support and increasing financial security across our communities will again be at the heart of our adult services delivery.
We will continue to provide residents of the Ferryhill, Chilton and West Cornforth areas with high quality, professional, confidential support to access their correct benefit entitlements, complete complicated benefit forms such as PIP applications, offer support and advice to appeal DWP decisions, make new claims for benefits and access welfare and debt support. We will also continue to provide easier access to advice and guidance via our outreach work at Chilton Town Council and Ferryhill Town Council.
We have been able to continue to deliver and grow this service thanks to Funding from the 4 together partnership, Funding from Chilton and Ferryhill Town Councils and former DCC Councillor Julie Cairns. For more details, please contact us on 01740 651639.
Million Hours of Youth – Youth of Tomorrow
‘The Million Hours Fund is a £22 million jointly funded initiative from the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) and The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest community funder in the UK. The programme funds organisations to provide positive activities for young people in areas with high levels of antisocial behaviour.’
This funding will be used to deliver addition youth activities in Ferryhill allowing Ferryhill LADDER Centre to offer 4 evenings of youth delivery for the next 2 years
AAP= Ladder Kids
This project has allowed us to work with 60 children from the 4 Together Partnership area. We have ran 3 open access play sessions a week for children aged 5-11 years old. These sessions gave the children a warm, safe environment where they could meet up with their friends or make new friends. The children took part in sports and physical activities such as: football, dodgeball, team building games. As well as arts and craft activities especially during themed months such as Easter, Halloween, Christmas etc. These sessions were very successful and the children had a lot of fun.
“I love playing dodgeball in the garden, especially when it’s kids vs staff.” – Girl aged 9.
“I liked it when we made Christmas cards, I made one for my mam, I used lots of stickers.” – Boy aged 8.
Digital Champion
Our Digital Champion has worked the local community to support them access IT and online services which included.
- Online Benefit Calculations and applications
- Employability
- Online applications for housing
- Online shopping
- Using comparison sites to find deals on products and services.
- Printing
- Online banking
- Connecting with family online
- Social Media
- Online interviews / Work / Benefit assessments
- Completing online training with external providers
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Welcome Space
Warm Welcome – Unlimited Hot Drinks – Toast/porridge/fruit
Point North are supporting us with funding from Welcome Spaces. This will enable us to provide a free breakfast drop in which will support local residents in the Ferryhill area. Our Welcome Space is open Monday to Thursday 8:30am till 10:30
Happy Hive
