Here's an idea

The Cheltenham debt advisory centre is part of the housing aid centre, a registered charity that was established more than 12 years ago to offer advice and information to anyone in housing need.

The aim of the housing aid centre is to reduce the negative outcomes of inadequate housing and homelessness and to really improve the quality of life for Cheltenham residents.

The debt advisory part of the service was set up about three years ago because we had people coming to us with a number of financial problems.

When we started the service we had a part-time debt worker who worked 18 hours a week to help clients solve their debt problems. That position is now full-time, thanks to the National Lottery grant we have been awarded of more than £80,000 from the Community Fund.

We not only get people in with financial problems such as rent arrears, we also get people who need to be educated about how to manage their money better, and we aim to support them, too.

Providing this kind of service is what we had in mind when we put our bid to the lottery. We do like to be as proactive as possible.

Debt advice is intense and it takes a long time, so we wanted to be able to look at self-help groups which would provide additional support to people on issues like how to manage money, sharing problems and producing literature on the subject.

These self-help groups are now up and running.

We see about two new cases a week and the centre works hard to help them maintain their housing and keep them in their homes.

The client type differs, and we have people with all sorts of problems.

But we see a lot of young families because often families find it hard to manage on a low income, especially if they have young children, who can be very demanding.