Company Spotlight: Buttle UK

In their own words, Buttle UK focuses on 'maintenance, education and advancement
 in life of children and young people who through poverty and family circumstances are in need of, and will benefit significantly from, Buttle UK’s support'.

Buttle UK was founded on the vision of an East End clergyman who endeavoured to raise £1m to 'launch 1,000 children a year out of poverty'. His name was Rev Frank Buttle and he died on February 1953 when he was just £80,000 away from his original target. This money was used as an endowment to fund the charity as it exists today and is now worth almost £50m.

The endowment was set up to be permanent, meaning that the Trustees are required to balance the potential needs of future beneficiaries of the fund with current ones. The fund therefore can never be fully spent but has been re-invested and multiplied countless times since its inception, creating an income which the Trust then spends on an annual basis. As they have grown, Buttle UK have expanded Frank Buttle's original vision to include research and project work, but the core of their work remains providing support and relief through grant aid.

In their 2014/15 review, they note that in the previous year, they 'gave out more than 11,000 grants worth a total of £3.7 million' but that in the future they plan to do even more. Recent projects include ground-breaking research on 'kinship carers' and a study into the effects of boarding school places for vulnerable children.

Key Areas of Focus

Their key areas of focus include:

• boarding places,
• domestic abuse,
• emergency essentials,
• estranged young people,
• and kinship care.

In 2015, Buttle UK launched 'Boarding Chances for Children', funded by the Education Endowment Foundation. This is a research project looking into the ways in which boarding schools can 'offer a transformative experience for certain groups of vulnerable children'. The charity is currently working with local authorities to place children at boarding schools starting from year 7 in September 20-17. In comparison with the majority of children in care, only 15% of which achieve 5 good GCSEs, 60-70% of children supported by Buttle UK to attend boarding school achieve at least 5 good GCSEs.

Buttle UK also runs the BBC Children in Need Emergency Essentials Programme, providing quick and direct financial support, in collaboration with their Small Grants scheme. The programme provides up to £300 for families or young people who are 'living in crisis', helping to alleviate stress caused by financial pressure and help families buy essentials such as white goods or even beds. Buttle UK's extensive network of 5,000 frontline partner agencies allows them to target funds to reach the most vulnerable children and young people in the UK; 28,057 children were helped by the charity within the last year alone.

Kinship carers refer to those who are taking care of the children of relatives because their parents can no longer look after them. A study commissioned by Buttle UK, conducted by the University of Bristol and funded by the Big Lottery Fund revealed in 2001 that approximately 173,200 children were living in this kind of situation. Changes in policy and demographics mean that this number has increased over time and with no statutory provision for local authorities to make provision for them, many kinship carers receive no formal support.

Buttle UK are developing projects to help carers meet the specific needs of children in these arrangements and are currently able to provide extra support to kinship carers in Northern Ireland as well as some parts of Scotland and Wales.

Click here to see our membership packages or leave a comment below.

Our next event will be at Buttle UK on 14th September. We hope to see you there!