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Debt Awarness Week 2024

Support Debt Awareness Week

What is Debt Awareness Week?

For 10 years, our annual campaign Debt Awareness Week has shone a spotlight on the experiences of people dealing with problem debt and put the free and impartial advice we offer on the agenda. With the support of our partners, we’ve reached millions of people and helped them tackle their debt.

As we celebrate the campaign’s 10th anniversary, Debt Awareness Week’s importance has never been greater. Last year the number of people we took through debt advice rose by 7%, as the cost of living pushed more people into financial difficulty.

Raising awareness of debt advice is crucial. Unfortunately, many people still don’t know where to turn for help, particularly if they have never struggled with their finances before. Over half our clients say that they waited over a year before coming to StepChange*. This delay could have devastating impacts on their financial and mental wellbeing.

*Survey of 2,744 StepChange clients – Aug 2022

Breaking down the barriers

Why don’t people get the help they need earlier? Our clients tell us that there are a number of obstacles that delayed or stopped them from reaching out to get help.

This Debt Awareness Week, we’re asking you to help us call attention to these barriers and work with us to break these down together.

Every day during Debt Awareness Week, we’ll be highlighting a different obstacle or barrier and explaining how we can provide the support to overcome these.

Our clients tell us that the biggest barriers to getting debt advice are:

  1. Not understanding how debt advice could help them
  2. Being worried that their friends or family will find out
  3. Fears that their credit score will be affected, or they won’t be able to borrow more money
  4. Mental health issues making it more difficult to get help
  5. Not having enough time to seek advice and tackle their debt

Every person’s situation is unique, and our client data shows that people from all corners of society are affected by problem debt.

92% of our clients wish they had asked for help earlier*. This Debt Awareness Week we want to break down the barriers that are delaying people getting debt advice.

How can I support the campaign?

Our objective is simple: To reach as many people as possible and let them know that help is available.

Support the campaign:

  •  Download our partner toolkit
    This contains all the information you’ll need to spread the word and raise awareness - including a range of social media assets and supporting copy, posters, banners, and email templates that you can send to your customers and colleagues. You can download high resolution versions of these files at the bottom of this page.

    Download the toolkit
  •  Register for our partner campaign launch webinar
    We’ll be joined by thought leaders from across our partner network to explore the key barriers that people face and how we can overcome them.

    Register for the webinar
  •  Get in touch
    We’ll be running a range of partner and customer facing events throughout Debt Awareness Week.

    Contact partnerships@stepchange.org to find out how you can support our campaign.

Download our campaign assets

Here are our full suite of campaign assets for Debt Awareness Week 2024. Please be aware, all assets except the ‘Coming soon’ assets are embargoed until 18 March.

Our mission is to break debt’s stigma and change lives for the better. Your support helps us do this.