Apply for a Helping Hand Crisis Payment
You may be able to get a crisis payment if you:
- have experienced a financial shock such as an unexpected expense or drop in income that has put pressure on your budget
- may be close to having a financial crisis and a one-off payment could ease pressure and allow you to maintain control of your finances
Crisis payments are available to support on a short-term basis and not to help with ongoing financial pressures.
Who is eligible
To qualify for a crisis payment, you must:
- live in Buckinghamshire
- be a low-income household with low savings (this means that your income doesn't cover your essential living costs)
- be experiencing a sudden, unexpected expense or drop in income that is putting you at immediate risk or hardship
Alternative support for ongoing issues
If your financial issues are expected to be ongoing, you may be able to find help elsewhere.
Use an eligibility checker which will tell you which benefits and support you may be eligible for based on your individual circumstances.
Alternatively, you can view guidance on organisations and schemes that can:
- help with food such as food banks or community fridges
- help with housing costs (housing payment)
- help with benefits (GOV.UK)
- help with essential bills and energy saving tips
- help with essential items for your home
- support in preventing homelessness
- help with managing debt
- help with the cost of childcare
- provide free holiday activities and meals during the school holidays
Make an application
To request support from Helping Hand, you will need to register for a My Buckinghamshire account.
We'll ask you to:
- register for a new My Buckinghamshire account
- confirm your email address (by visiting a link that we send you by email)
You can then return to the Helping Hand form and sign in to request support.
Do not complete this form more than once. If you need to tell us anything else once your original request is made, you can do this through your My Buckinghamshire account.
To help you save time, make sure that you meet all eligibility criteria.
Because our funds are specific to certain needs, we can only approve applications that meet all of our eligibility criteria. Reviewing these now helps avoid the disappointment of a declined application later.
Supporting documents will be required for example, bank statements or evidence of your benefits. We will tell you during the application process which documents are needed.
If you need help with your application, you can call us on 01296 531 151.
We may ask you to upload supporting documents for your application.
To upload supporting documents:
- sign into your My Buckinghamshire account
- select “My account & reports” and go to your “Service Requests”
- select your Helping Hand application
- select “Add document”, then “add”
- select the type of document and select upload
To request an update on your support application:
- sign into your My Buckinghamshire account
- select “My account & reports” and go to your “Service Requests”
- select your Helping Hand application
- select “Add note” and select the “Note from customer” as the type
- fill in the details and select “Add”
Crisis Payments are funded by the Government's Crisis and Resilience Fund.
