Genesis Trust’s Emma Drew in conversation with Ryan Kirkby from Clean Slate

Genesis Trust’s Emma Drew talks to Ryan Kirby from Clean Slate, who have a partnership with Bath Foodbank, funded by Trussell. Along with Citizens Advice, Clean Slate offers guidance and support to clients who attend Bath Foodbank sessions each week.

Emma speaks to Ryan about what Clean Slate offers Bath Foodbank clients and how he feels the partnership is going…

Can you tell us a bit more about Clean Slate and how they support people?

What we’re trying to do is get people talking about how their money situation is, how their benefits are working out for them. We try to get them to look into budgeting, which is often a tricky subject, try to track where they’re spending money at the moment and try and help them improve that. We try to get people to really understand where their money is going. That’s the most important step before we can help turn things around.

Are you based in the South West or National?

We currently have drop-in/face to face services in Bristol, Bath, Gloucestershire and in multiple London Boroughs. We also operate a remote service via our Virtual Support Hub for people who access those drop-ins, as well as nationally for tenants of certain housing associations. (More information here.)

We also have our Quids In magazine, which is national. The magazine goes into all sorts of community buildings like foodbanks and housing associations buy them to give to their clients. It’s written in such a way that isn’t too intimidating. We find the hardest part is getting the information to people which gives them ways to help themselves. We go over some of the recent updates, like when benefits moved to Universal Credit, to give people an idea of what to expect. We’ve got a new tenancy guide to help with utility suppliers, for example.

If someone comes to Bath Foodbank, how would they know whether to talk with you or Citizens Advice?

What we tend to say is, Citizens Advice are good at dealing with more specific legal things. Whereas we’re more about getting people to understand their financial health, how are they spending their day-to-day money. We’re trying to have a conversation with people and help them understand their situation.

We run courses to give people that time and also offer direct support like fuel vouchers. If you have 100 bills to pay and you don’t know where to start, you’re not going to take that time to think about the little things, you’re going to be worried about the debts and your house. That’s where we get Citizens Advice involved with the big things and then we can try to talk with them about those bits that are more personal to them.

Can you tell me about the courses you run?

There’s a 5-6 week ‘money guidance’ course which is usually the most relevant to people visiting Bath Foodbank. This is a one-to-one, over the phone course. The first session will be a money health check to identify where we can best support people. Then we can put together a benefits calculator to see if there are any grants available for them and see if they are eligible for fuel vouchers.

We also have an employability course, which is one of the areas we specialise in. It gets people thinking about what they want to do for work and what they’re good at. We give support with CVs and how to sell the skills they’ve got. When you break down what people have done in certain jobs, they find they have a lot to offer.

We also run in-person group workshops at places like the YMCA in Bath. There’s one called 3Bs (being online, budgeting, banking). What we saw during Covid is that a lot of people didn’t have the means to manage their money online, and once everything shut down they were unable to access it. We show other ways to do it and how we can support them with that.

How did you personally get involved with Clean Slate?

I joined back in 2023. I was looking for volunteering to help me get out and about a bit more. I was referred to Clean Slate by my GP and Clean Slate recommended their employability course. For three months I did one day a week at Bath Foodbank which ran alongside some training. About three or four months later, a position came up and I joined the team as a support worker. I cover Bath Foodbank and some one-to-one support over the phone. I knew the Bath Foodbank team quite well by that point, so it was good to get involved again.

Roughly how many people have you seen since you started?

In the last year, I’ve picked up 98 people through Bath Foodbank. I might talk a little bit about who we are and what we do and then ask them how they’re doing at that point. And if not, is there any other type of support we might be able to signpost to, like Citizens Advice.

For those 98 people, they’ve made an average financial gain of £507. This can be in reductions in energy bills, changes in spending habits or improvements to benefits.

Can you tell us how a session might go for you at Bath Foodbank?

I typically set up our table in the hall where people sit to wait for their food parcels and try and be as approachable as I can. Then we let the Bath Foodbank team do their part with food orders. I’ll then go around and introduce myself whilst they are waiting for their parcels to see if we can have a chat.

I introduced myself to someone recently but he really wasn’t wanting to interact. Then he came another week and said, ‘actually there is something you can help with’. It’s trying to get people to grasp that we are part of the support on offer. It can be scary for people. They’re in a public place, they don’t know what’s going on and people can feel vulnerable. Sometimes just speaking with someone where I tell them, ‘you’ve got this’ can be enough. Sometimes I get to build up a relationship and they can recommend us to others they know.

How do you feel like the partnership is going?

What I made sure to do when I started was to build relationships with the Bath Foodbank staff and volunteers so they knew what Clean Slate can do for clients. When the volunteers talk to the clients and go through the food list, the clients might say they have a problem with work or whatever. The volunteer can say, ‘well Clean Slate are here today’. We can work as a better team then, to give people all the resources we have on offer.

I think the way the partnership runs right now does work and we’ve got a rapport with each other. We can send people between us where relevant, so clients can get the best support. It takes the pressure off trying to speak to all the people that turn up during that session too. We know that we’re working together as a team.

Thanks so much Ryan for speaking with me today and for sharing what you’re doing with Clean Slate. It’s so helpful to have a better understanding of how you’re supporting people at Bath Foodbank.

I don’t think I could have done an interview like this a few years ago. Going to Bath Foodbank and talking to people you don’t know, it gives you that confidence to speak to people. That’s what we’re all about really, giving people confidence and the opportunity to do those types of things.

We always talk about helping the clients but for me it’s great to have those interactions as well. It’s really what gets me out of bed in the morning, that I know I’ll have plenty of good conversations whilst I’m there, those interactions we crave as humans.

To find out more about Clean Slate, visit their website. You can also read our interview with Bella from Citizens Advice to see how they too are supporting our Bath Foodbank clients.