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ABTA LifeLine
ABTA LifeLine is ABTA’s charity for past and present employees of ABTA Members. We help provide support for the unexpected moments in life such as redundancy, relationship breakdown, accidents and bereavement among many other things.
We give practical, financial and emotional assistance to travel colleagues that are really struggling, throwing them a LifeLine in their time of need.
Below is a list of the main things ABTA LifeLine may be able to help you with. The list is not exhaustive. Our support is flexible and tailored to best help you and your family.
Emergency support
If you are struggling to provide food for your family, we can help you with a voucher to spend on essential groceries and household items (not tobacco, alcohol or lottery tickets).
You can also speak to your GP, social worker, health visitor or Citizens Advice who can give you a voucher to visit your local Trussell Trust food bank.
Crisis grants
We may be able to award a crisis grant to help for a short time with rent, mortgage, council tax and utility bills. We pay suppliers direct on your behalf.
We cannot help with non-priority debt such as credit and store cards, payday loans etc.
Benefit, budgeting and housing advice
With your consent we can refer you to our partner Citizens Advice (Manchester - CAM) who can give you expert advice on debt, benefits, housing and budgeting. They will provide you with options and help to manage your finances and in some cases take on benefit appeals.
This advice is non-judgemental, confidential and will not affect your credit rating.
Funeral costs
If you have not been able to secure State help with the costs of a funeral, in exceptional circumstances we can help with basic costs (excludes cars, flowers etc.).
Essential household appliances
We can help with the replacement of essential appliances including washing machines, fridge freezers and ovens. In some cases, we can also help with essential furnishings such a bed, pots and pans, flooring etc.
Support for your children
We can help with school uniform and equipment, including IT and other essential needs.
Counselling and wellbeing support
ABTA LifeLine has teamed up with The Centre for Crisis Psychology (CCP) to provide you with mental health and wellbeing support; intervention when it really matters.
Eligible applicants will have direct telephone access to clinicians, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to support them.
Please note: If you are in need of urgent attention please do visit the NHS webpage which has details of all organisations that can quickly help you including Samaritans, MIND, YoungMinds etc.
How to apply
Please fill out our online application form. Please read all the information on this webpage with the steps you need to take before applying. You must submit documents to support your application to complete our governance checks and to demonstrate you are in financial hardship.
Help us to help others
If you know of anyone that may fall on financial difficulty or need mental health and wellbeing support, please bring ABTA LifeLine to their attention and the potential help we could provide. And please do pass this on to all colleagues. It is our goal to make sure we reach all those that need a lifeline during the challenging times in their lives.
And when you are back on your feet, please do have a think about how you could support your travel industry charity ABTA LifeLine. We rely solely on travel industry funding and your support is vital to us continuing to provide the support that we do.
Please take a look at our stories to see how we have helped our travel colleagues.
For more information
Email: lifeline@abtalifeline.org.uk
Call: 020 3693 0170
Website: www.abtalifeline.org.uk
Twitter: @abtalifeline
Facebook: ABTA LifeLine