The new ILF Scotland Transition Fund provides money, for up to one year, to support young people living with disabilities (as defined in the Equality Act 2010) to improve their lives. This includes autism, learning difficulty, physical disability, mental health (e.g. anxiety or depression) or hearing or visual impairments.

The purpose of the Fund is to help young people, between the ages of 16 and 21 living with disabilities, with the transition after leaving school or children’s services to be more independent and to continue spending time with other people.

You can apply for the ILF Transition Fund if you:

• Are between the age of 15 and 21 years old (if you apply at 15 you won’t receive the money until you turn 16 and if you are 21 applications must be made before your 22nd birthday).
• Have lived in Scotland for the last 6 months.
• Have an impairment or disability (as defined in the Equality Act 2010).
• Have less than £26,250 of personal savings.
• Have little or no formal support from Social Work Services or through Self Directed Support (SDS).

Family Fund: Your Opportunity - Funding for 18-24 year olds.

The Family Fund is currently running a small grant programme called 'Your Opportunity' that supports disabled and seriously ill young people aged 18-24 years old who are living at home. This runs in the same way as the main Family Fund grants programme for those aged 17 and under. The main difference is that they cannot help with grants for family breaks through 'Your Opportunity'.

'Your Opportunity' has very limited funding and they will accept applications from families on a first come, first served basis until the funding is fully allocated. We can only process one application per household, so if a family has already received a grant from Family Fund in the last 12 months, or is awaiting a decision, they will not be able to accept an application to 'Your Opportunity'. This is to help us reach as many families as possible with the limited funding they have.

Please note that young people cannot apply to ‘Your Opportunity’ independently – the application has to come from the parent or carer. The young person can only receive a ‘Your Opportunity’ grant once.

Please visit www.familyfund.org.uk/help-for-18-24-year-olds for more information.

This information is provided by H&SC North Lanarkshire Council Transition team.