Following brain injury people are often left with a range of complex cognitive, emotional and communication difficulties. In many instances family relationships break down and people find themselves isolated. The apparent lack of 'physical' disabilities means that health & social care professionals and the general public underestimate their difficulties and people find themselves facing problems with housing, benefits, accessing heaklth and community services etc Headway offers specialist information, advice and advocacy support for people with brain injury and ensures they are referred on to other agencies for more specialist help whether that be further rehabilitation, legal advice etc The statutory sector will not currently fund this work, partly due to a lack of understanding of the issues for brain injured people and partly because of funding constraints. Headway raises approx £48,000 each year to fund this work; however demand is growing and we would like to employ an additional outreach worker which will cost £36,000 (inc management supervision and training). The aims of the work are: to assist people with brain injury to overcome obstacles to their recovery to find strategies for managing their difficulties more effectively in the future to improve their situation and improve their self esteem to encourage them to take up positive activities