Why our work matters

Over recent years, economic and social conditions have worsened for many more families. With the pandemic, further cutbacks in local authority services, the introduction of Universal Credit and the rise in food and energy prices, more and more families have come to or been referred to Oasis. This is an unsettling trend backed by recent statistics.

Domestic Abuse

The ‘Counting Dead Women’ project, estimated that during the first three weeks of the first lockdown, there had been sixteen domestic abuse killings of women and children in the UK, which was the highest for at least 11 years.

Between April 2020 and February 2021 calls and contacts logged on Refuge’s National Domestic Abuse Helpline were up by an average of 61%

By March 2021, Surrey domestic abuse charity, Your Sanctuary, had recorded a 31% increase in calls to their support helpline, compared to the previous financial year. When the first lockdown lifted in August 2020, the number of people calling Surrey Police for help had increased, with an 8% rise in the number of incidents being reported and, on average, Surrey Police recorded 28 domestic abuse crimes every day.

In Surrey, there are an estimated 35,400 victims of abuse, with 3,300 children visible to services as living in homes where there is domestic violence. Sadly, these figures are only the tip of the iceberg as we know that less than one in four victims report to the police.

Foodbanks

Some areas of Surrey have seen a 268% increase in demand for local foodbank services. By November 2020, one Surrey foodbank had already fed 9801 people compared to just over 5000 people during the whole of 2019.

Poverty

The Legatum Institute found that poverty has risen as a result of the Covid-19 crisis. 440,000 more people were in poverty in Summer 2020 and 690,000 more in Winter 2020. Pre-pandemic, 12.4% of children were living in poverty.

Children

According to research by the University of Bristol four million children live in a family which has lost income since the start of the Pandemic. Of those, 1.6 million children live in a family which has lost a third or more of its total household income, according to the findings.

The Mental Health Foundation estimate that in Surrey, 1 in 10 children and young people have poor mental health – equating to an estimated 14,500 individuals between the ages of 5 and 15.