Buttle UK

In 2009–2010 Buttle UK made 8,887 awards to nearly 20,000 disadvantaged individual children and young people across the UK to help them obtain basic necessities.[4]

Buttle UK distributes grants on behalf of BBC Children in Need and welcomes applications from referring agencies throughout the United Kingdom on behalf of children and young people aged 18 or under who are in need. Grants are generally for such items as clothing, beds, bedding, washing machines, cookers and other basic essentials.

In 2007, online grant applications were launched on the charity's website for Child Support and BBC Children in Need grants, streamlining the process and greatly reducing the response time.

The organization provides funding for school fees for at-risk children.[5]

Buttle UK has now closed this programme, but supports Estranged Young People ages 16–20. Awards financial support to young people (aged 16–20), with severe social problems, particularly those who are estranged from their parents, to attend further education and training. By funding course costs, equipment, field trips or basic day-to-day living costs, Buttle UK relieves the financial pressures and worries that often force these vulnerable young people to abandon their studies early. In 2009–2010 Buttle UK enabled 172 young people to access courses as varied as architecture, music technology, business and tree surgery.[6]

Buttle UK has now closed this programme, but supports Estranged Young People ages 16–20. Offers bespoke packages of support for hard to reach young people (aged 18–25) to aid their return to education, employment or training. Working with local partner organisations, our grants are targeted at removing the barriers to learning and work for vulnerable young people as well as funding a range of courses, activities and learning that would otherwise be unavailable. The support may vary from something like the cost of security guard training and licence, to driving lessons, or buying suitable cloths for an interview. Buttle UK aims to provide a complete package designed specifically for each young person, that will help them access a better future.[7]

Buttle UK ran the Students and Trainees and Access to the Future Programmes successfully however analysis showed that these grants would be more impactful when focused on a certain group of young people. Therefore, a programme for estranged young people ages 16–20 offers more focused support enabling young people who have no support from their families to re-engage with education, training and employment.

Buttle UK worked with nkm (Mayhew Harpers Associates Ltd) to analyse 10 years worth of data from their grant giving database, representing 125,000 grant applications made from 10,000 referral agencies in the UK, to commission their Crisis Points report. The groundbreaking research revealed the many families and children currently at crisis point in the UK. Moreover, it also highlights those who are potentially falling under the radar, living in unreported poverty.

Buttle UK and Bristol University have received funding from the Big Lottery Fund to research kinship care. The first findings of the project were published in 2011 and were based on the 2001 census. The findings showed that more than 90% of kinship care arrangements in each region of the UK were informal agreements between parents and relatives. Therefore, carers were not entitled to financial support from social services. Poverty was a recurrent feature with 44% of kinship families were living in the poorest areas of the country. The second phase of the project involves interviewing children growing up in kinship care, and their carers and is expected to be disseminated at the end of 2012.

This two-year action research project was funded jointly by The Frank Buttle Trust and the British Dyslexia Association (BDA). The project raised the level of awareness of the needs of children with dyslexia in the state education system and published a report "'I'm glad that I don't take No for an answer': Parent-Professional Relationships and Dyslexia Friendly Schools".[9]

Buttle UK commissioned the NSPCC and the University of York to undertake this research project, which was funded by the Big Lottery Fund. The final report was called "Living with hardship 24/7: the diverse experiences of families in poverty in England".[10]

Buttle UK is a founder member of the charity End Child Poverty. It seeks to influence government on public policy that affects children and young people, and works collaboratively with a number of other children's charities to effect change for children.