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Social welfare support

The Social Welfare Workshop is a longstanding commitment to access to justice. It is a collaboration to give vital welfare support between Hogan Lovells, BNY Mellon, and Community Links, a Newham-based charity. Since the start of the pandemic, we moved the clinic to being entirely remote.

Volunteers assist individuals with various Social Welfare Benefit forms alongside Community Links. Through the collaboration and rapid response to COVID-19, we have been able to support some of the most vulnerable people in crisis by being innovative and agile in our response activities and reaching people in their homes with the right support. During lockdown, demand for the service increased by 450%.

By providing wraparound advice support to complement Community Link's core offering of emergency provisions, access to expert guidance on debt, legal challenges, tribunals and welfare, the Social Welfare Workshop is able to support people on the road to recovery and resilience, improving their prospects and helping them to explore new horizons.

In addition to the Social Welfare Workshop, volunteers from Hogan Lovells also represent people at Tribunal in conjunction with charities, where Employment Support Allowance (ESA) or Personal Independence Payments (PIP) have been refused.

The Social Welfare Workshop has been shortlisted for the Lord Mayor's Dragon Awards for Innovation during COVID-19 and in 2020 we featured on the Social Mobility Roll of Honour.

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