End Furniture Poverty – winner of the Best Large Charity award at the SMF Awards 2024 – launched its Time for Bed campaign in 2023 with funding support from the Steve Morgan Foundation and has already helped 124 children to move away from furniture poverty.
Furniture poverty is a ‘hidden’ poverty – it’s behind closed doors and can often go unnoticed. We naturally assume that people who have a place to live also have everything within it to make it a home and be comfortable. Sadly, this is not the case for thousands of children across Merseyside alone, as highlighted by research commissioned by End Furniture Poverty which found that at least 18,000 children do not have a bed of their own. Furniture poverty often comes to light through conversations that happen within schools, which prompted End Furniture Poverty to launch its Time for Bed appeal.
The Time for Bed campaign works on a referral basis from partner schools. The campaign launched with 15 partner schools across Merseyside and now works with 34. In the last 11 months, Time for Bed has received 65 referrals and provided beds for 127 children.
The Time for Bed campaign
The Steve Morgan Foundation awarded funding to End Furniture Poverty in early 2023 to cover the salary for a dedicated fundraising manager for three years to launch and deliver the Time for Bed campaign. Launched in May 2023, Time for Bed provides free bed bundles to children impacted by furniture poverty across the whole of Merseyside to ensure they have a comfortable place to sleep.
Bed bundles include a bed base, headboard, duvet, pillow and two sets of bedding. The bundles are flexible and could be for single beds, bunk beds, cots & cotbeds, depending on the needs of the beneficiaries. Recognising that not one size fits all, bespoke items can also be provided under the scheme, such as mattress only and waterproof bedding.
Time for Bed is open to pupils or siblings of pupils of one of the Time for Bed partner schools, aged between 0-18 years.
How the Time for Bed campaign works
The aim is to make the process as quick, straightforward and stress-free as possible.
Schools within the remit area that have identified a family where there are children without a bed complete a straightforward online form on the dedicated Time for Bed website where they can register to become a partner of the campaign.
Once they become a partner, they can then make referrals for families in need.
Upon receiving a referral, the families will be contacted and will receive their bed bundle within one week. They will also get a support pack which provides details of additional support services and how to access those should they need it.
Referrals can only be made through a partner school, so in instances where a potential beneficiary has been identified by a family’s social worker, care worker or other support team, End Furniture Poverty will help to identify a partner school who can make the referral. This joined up approach is allowing more people to access and benefit from the appeal.
Hopes for the future
The £10,000 received as a result of winning Best Large Charity at the SMF Awards will be spent solely on the Time for Bed campaign and will fund an additional 57 bed bundles to help reach more children.
The longer-term goal is to continue to raise the profile of the Time for Bed appeal and grow organically, getting more schools and businesses on board so that they can expand and sustain the service beyond the funding period and benefit more children.
The hope is to produce a sustainable model that could be rolled out nationally.
“The support we’ve had from the Steve Morgan Foundation – funding my post and helping us to set up and deliver the Time for Bed campaign – has been fantastic. But to win the award and get that recognition is really humbling and also helps to put us in the spotlight. Although End Furniture Poverty is part of a larger group of charities,the Time for Bed campaign is small and new and needs that springboard to get it into the public eye. We are really appreciative of the Steve Morgan Foundation and everything they have done for us so far.” Julie Lavigne, EFP Fundraising Manager.
About End Furniture Poverty
End Furniture Poverty is the campaigning and social research arm of FRC Group, a group of not-for-profit charities providing furniture to people living in furniture poverty for more than 30 years. Created nine years ago to raise awareness of furniture poverty, it works with partners to develop scaled solutions, including supporting social landlords to create furniture schemes for tenants.