Much-loved Crewe charity celebrates Lottery scoop

Lone parent charity South Cheshire CLASP is celebrating funding from the National Lottery Community Fund.

The Crewe-based charity has been awarded £340,624.00 over five years allowing it to continue providing core services to hundreds of local families.

CLASP works with lone-parent families across Crewe and Nantwich, many of whom are facing isolation, financial pressure, mental health challenges or difficult life circumstances.

It offers emotional, practical and therapeutic support for both parents and children, including specialist counselling, therapeutic groups in schools, workshops and courses, parenting support, school holiday activities and crisis support when things feel overwhelming.

CEO Sharon Stowell said: “We’re thrilled to have been awarded £340,624.00 over five years from The National Lottery Community Fund.

“In such a challenging funding landscape, this grant has saved CLASP from an uncertain future. It secures our core costs, protects our small team, and ensures we can continue the support families rely on.

“We are incredibly grateful to The National Lottery Community Fund for believing in our work and for their continued support of our work with lone-parent families.”

CLASP, based at Mill House on Brook Street,  supports around 200 families a year.

Sharon added: “The funding also aligns closely with the direction of the Fund’s new strategy, ‘It starts with community’, which focuses on helping communities come together, supporting children and young people to thrive, enabling healthier lives and encouraging environmental sustainability.

“These aims reflect the heart of what CLASP does, strengthening families, improving wellbeing and giving parents and children the chance to build confidence, resilience and connection.

“The recent change in the commissioned service for young people meant we had to restrict the support we could offer to teenagers, which was really difficult for us and for the families who rely on CLASP.

“This new Lottery funding means we are now in a much stronger position to apply for additional funding to reinforce and widen the support we offer. Our hope is to restart our therapeutic groups in secondary schools and create more consistent opportunities for teenagers to access the help they need.”

The charity is also planning a confidence and self-esteem literacy programme in primary schools for children from lone-parent families, alongside strengthening work with vulnerable and isolated parents and expanding its community-based wellbeing and peer-support activities.

Its looking forward to taking children to Jack and the Beanstalk at the Lyceum and a ‘breakfast with Santa’ event at Big Mugs cafe.

Pics: South Cheshire CLASP CEO Sharon (right) and team members

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