To provide information to professionals and volunteers about what support is available to mitigate the Cost of Living (CoL)in South Tees.

As you will all know, the cost of living (CoL) has increased both nationally and locally. Both local authorities have been working with partners to coordinate a planned approach to advise on what support is available to mitigate the effects that people may experience in access to food, warmth, money, health and transport throughout the crisis.

The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) recognises a wide range of existing groups who are more at risk of being impacted by cold weather and the cost of living crisis. This is either because of age, a medical condition(s), a disability that stops people moving around to keep warm or personal circumstances such as housing conditions.

To support the local response to the cost of living crisis we wanted to help you to help your service users by ensuring that staff/organisations working directly with the identified at risks groups have information on where people can access support which is the aim of this briefing session.

We urge all staff and volunteers, and those particularly working with the risks groups below (not exclusively as the impact of CoL will be widely felt) to sign up to one of the 1 hour briefing sessions hosted through the South Tees Wellbeing Network. The briefing will be led by Martin Barker (Middlesbrough Council) and Mike Oyston (Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council).