GambleAware sees improvements in gambling harm awareness
The industry-backed charity has seen an increase in gambling harm awareness following the launch of its Community Resilience Fund.
UK.- The gaming industry-backed grant-making body GambleAware has published a new independent evaluation report on the first year of its new Community Resilience Fund (CRF). The fund was introduced as a new way to commission awareness and support services, funding providers that had not previously received funds from GambleAware.
In its first year, the CRF made grants to 21 community-based organisations in England, Wales and Scotland for the provision of gambling harm support and awareness-raising initiatives. Conducted by Ipsos and New Philanthropy Capital, the report identifies an increase in awareness in local communities as a result.
The focus included people from ethnic minorities and marginalised groups, people experiencing poverty and people in areas of high deprivation. These organisations that received funding include charities helping people experiencing homelessness and charities established by professional sports teams that had “‘existing expertise” in working with diverse communities that were at risk of gambling harm but underrepresented in support services.
GambleAware chief commissioning and strategy officer Anna Hargrave said: “Gambling harm can affect anyone, but we know certain communities are at higher risk of experiencing harm. These are the people we wanted to reach with our Community Resilience Fund.”
She added: “We are pleased that the organisations who received funding were able to help so many people in their communities, especially as many of the people they work with are from marginalised groups who may not usually access gambling support services. It is concerning that stigma may have stopped some people coming forward for help from the organisations which received funding.
“At GambleAware we have campaigned to try and end the stigma associated with gambling harm so that people feel able to come forward and get support, and we will continue working towards this goal.”
Organisations that received funding from the CRF include Big Issue Changing Lives CIC, which works with people experiencing homelessness, poverty or marginalisation. It used the funding to address gambling-related harms among Big Issue sellers.
Service development manager Gwyn Thomas de Chroustchoff said: “We are very grateful to the CRF for their support. Through this programme, our Big Issue vendor support teams have learnt how to broach conversations around gambling with our vendors, building relationships and trust with those affected. It’s really opened our eyes on how we talk about this issue and ways we can protect our vendors from gambling harm.
“We appreciated working with the project team at GambleAware, and their responsive grant management approach. We also were pleased to have regular opportunities to share learnings with other organisations in the fund, with the monitoring, evaluation and learning support offered.”
Meanwhile, GambleAware has spoken in support of a high-profile report on gambling and health published in The Lancet. The world’s oldest medical journal, and one of the most esteemed, warned that gambling, and particularly online gambling, poses a rising global threat to public health.
