AN OSWESTRY-BASED counselling service for vulnerable people with disabilities has served a stark notice for its future, warning that it could close without huge funding injections.

Staff at the Shropshire Peer Counselling and Advocacy Service (PCAS), based in Willow Street, say that if current funding amounting to £180,000 is not matched by November, it will have to close.

That could see the end of support to more than 200 people needing help with physical and learning disabilities, older people, dementia, among other conditions plus domestic and child protection issues.

Simon Arthur, manager at PCAS, says they face a genuine threat of closure if they cannot replace funding that is set to end in eight months and is calling on help possible.

"All of our main funding ends in November this year, so we're doing all that we can to secure more," he said.

"We're applying for grants but the success rate of an award seems to have gone from one in five to one in 10 or 20 in some cases.

"We're not relying on grant funding because it's getting so hard to secure, and Covid has added to the problems because – rightly so – a lot of grant funding has focussed on that.

"But our work will continue after Covid, and our referrals are still coming on a daily basis and we have more than 70 people waiting, desperate for help with these heart-wrenching stories of domestic abuse, child protection, and mental health issues.

"Because we're a small charity, we're 100 per cent independently-funded so we get no help from statutory funding such as Shropshire Council.

"We took the decision to do that because of the cuts on government's funding, which in turn affected Shropshire Council's funding.

"It's taken us a long time to get our independence – we did get funding from Shropshire and from Telford too – and we are reliant on donations and grant funding."

READ MORE: 

Simon was injured in an accident in 1991 and he joined with a small group of disabled people to start PCAS in 1995.

He explained the work they do is vital to a number of people.

"We're not the type of service people think about unless they need us," he added.

"We're not like a hospice or a CAMS charity, but the work we do is so important for disabled people, ensuring they have a better quality of life through any means we can help them with.

A lot of that is very personal – when the clients come into this, they're in a bad place so we work with them long term to ensure that people listen to them.

"It's on a sustainable level where they can continue to live in the community and have that help and support to ensure they stay there.

"That they're protected from abuse, financial hardship, help them in child protection and adult safeguarding and then work with them after that to ensure abuse doesn't happen again."

Anyone wishing to contact Simon regarding funding and donations can do so at simon@shropshirepcas.co.uk