Help Through Hardship Crisis and Advice First Aid

Citizens Advice Wandsworth and the Community Empowerment Network (CEN) work in partnership on this project to help people in Wandsworth facing hardship crises. We provide support to address the underlying causes of crisis through advice on issues such as employment, benefits, homelessness and debt.  This advice is provided by experienced caseworkers and by upskilling people in the community to help spot issues and signpost clients. We bring organisations in Wandsworth together to share learning and to refer clients to one another.

Getting advice

We are a team of two generalist advisers and a specialist housing adviser based at our offices in Battersea Library. We provide expertise in welfare benefits, housing, cost of living issues, finance and budgeting, and can offer limited advice on immigration. Referrals are received from our trusted community partners, from Advice First Aiders (who have attended our courses) and internally from other parts of Citizens Advice Wandsworth.  

Many of the people we help have complicated issues which they can’t solve on their own. Some have language barriers, some struggle with technology, some have health issues and others are too overwhelmed to tackle things alone. We provide a complete service. This starts with identifying what each person needs help with and then offering information and meaningful support to resolve these issues and improve circumstances – sometimes referring or signposting to more specialist services if required.

How to refer to Help Through Hardship Crisis

If you are from a local organisation in Wandsworth and know someone who needs our help, you can refer using the webform here. Please be aware that our service is currently extremely busy. It may take up to 2 weeks for us to make contact with any referrals made.

Advice First Aid (Wandsworth)

Our Advice First Aid (AFA) programme aims to empower local community partners to advise members of their own community directly. The programme is delivered jointly with Community Empowerment Network (CEN).   

Basic AFA training is a two-day course covering the fundamentals of advice provision, including benefits, housing and debt. It is for people who want to roll out Advice First Aid in their community. The course is run every 6 months. The next two-day course will run on 8 and 15 May 2025. If you are interested in signing up, please use the links below or contact Natasha Cross at natasha.cross@cawandsworth.org 

We will also be running a limited number of Advice First Aid bitesize training sessions over the next few months for existing Advice First Aid partners. Book using the table below. 

If you are an existing partner and cannot attend the upcoming training sessions but would like to discuss alternative arrangements please contact natasha.cross@cawandsworth.org.

If you are from an organisation that would like to deliver Advice First Aid training, please contact natasha.cross@cawandsworth.org 

Our conferences and events

We host an annual conference every year with the aim of bringing together community partners, statutory partners and policy makers to discuss issues affecting the residents of Wandsworth

The 2025 conference was held on Tuesday 8 July 2025 at St Peters Church in Battersea. The focus was the proposed changes to the welfare benefits system and the impact this is likely to have on Wandsworth residents. A report on the conference is here. 

Previous conferences have examined:

• 2024 – The Cost of Living Crisis and the Opportunity for Change.
• 2023 – Enabling Rights and Advocacy to Reduce Health Inequalities (report here).
• 2022 – Looking at the Cost-of-Living Crisis: Working together to reduce poverty and hardship in Wandsworth (report here). 
• 2021 – Learning from Service Delivery During the Pandemic (report here).

If you would like to receive information about upcoming events, please subscribe to our mailing list here. 

Our partnerships and Refernet

Citizens Advice is eager to connect with local partners who provide support to the many different communities in Wandsworth. We want to support a strong local network, ensuring people experiencing hardship crises can easily access the help they need.  

We look to collaborate with volunteers, faith organisations, voluntary groups, food providers and any other individuals or organisations who work with residents who may need our help. We can offer outreach sessions, training for staff and volunteers (through AFA), and invitations to our events to connect with other organisations.  

As part of this work, we also host an online referral platform called Refernet. Through Refernet, partner organisations can easily send secure referrals to each other, to create an easier journey for our clients. 

Get in touch with jo.anderson@cawandsworth.org if you are part of an organisation based in Wandsworth and would like to connect. 

Evaluation of the Help Through Hardship Crisis Project

In 2025 we commissioned Phil Jew Consulting to carry out an evaluation of the Crisis Project against its intended outcomes. The report aims to contribute to a wider conversation about how community-rooted partnerships can respond to complex social and economic need, and how the Crisis Project can be sustained and developed beyond its current lifetime to 2026. The full report is here, with an executive summary here.