Family Network Meeting facilitation grant

The selection of Dorset Council as a Families First for Children Pathfinder provides a unique opportunity to deliver pioneering reforms to support Children, Young People and Families.  

The purpose of the grant project is to develop, in partnership with our FFCP evaluators and Dorset VCSA, the independent facilitation of Family Network Meetings in the community Early Support space. For example, when requested by a family and a Lead Practitioner at their school.

There is £50,000 of funding available with this grant.

Grant purpose

We wish to fund a grant project that will enable independent facilitators to:

• attend Family Network Meetings across the Dorset Council area
• liaise with Lead Practitioners to secure a Family Network Meeting date suitable for all parties. The Family Network Meeting should take place within two weeks of the Family Network Meeting request
• provide an independent, balanced, quality facilitation experience allowing adequate time for travel, meeting preparation, follow-up actions (including the authorisation, recording, and provision of Family Network Support Packages if agreed), and supervision as required
• contribute to a Family Network Plan, alongside the family and their Lead Practitioner, in response to identified needs
• arrange resources (finances / services) for members of the Family Network in line with agreed Family Network Plan, liaising with Dorset Council payments team to process and authorise payments of varying values
• attend training, group supervision, or evaluation interviews as the project develops

Reporting requirements

A live reporting form (accessible by the grant recipient and Dorset Council) shall be completed for all Family Network Meetings requested and attended, as well as any Support Packages requested and processed.

The grant recipient will be required to attend a project group which shall meet regularly during the initial development phase, and monthly thereafter.

Attendance at relevant partnership or steering groups will also be required to support the development of Pathfinder’s test and learn approaches.

Evaluation of bids for this project

Evaluators will score each bid across the following five areas, each equally weighted at 20% of the total score:

• skills and experience in this field demonstrated, with an existing workforce in the Dorset area
• robust plan to ensure the facilitation offer is available across Dorset at a time and location to suit family networks and their practitioners
• understanding of challenges and risks working on this test and learn project, and appropriate plans to overcome, mitigate or manage them
• providing an inclusive and empowering offer for families
• plans to work with Dorset Council and partners to meet the wider objectives of the Families First for Children Pathfinder throughout the duration of the grant period

Terms and conditions

All applicants will need to evidence the following prior to confirmation of award and release of funds (documentation upload at the point of application is mandatory for the larger grants projects):

• Constitution, articles of association, or set of rules 
• Public Liability and Employers Liability Insurance where applicable
• Safeguarding and Safer Recruitment policy
• Asset Lock Statement (CIC’s only) and charitable objectives clause

We reserve the right to request further documentation upon the advice of our Legal or Contracts team.

The terms and conditions for all awards are:  

• the grant can be claimed in full at the commencement of the project. To claim the grant the recipient must accept all the terms and conditions of the grant offer
• applicants will be asked to sign a standard grant agreement with full details of their grant award including terms and conditions
• applications must be submitted on the online form provided by Dorset Council
• decisions made by the grant evaluation panel for the spending of this funding are final and there is no appeals process
• Dorset Council will not accept/consider any applications received after the closing date of 11:59pm on Sunday 8 September 2024  
• partial grant awards may be made (if this has a detrimental impact on the delivery of the planned intervention, we will be open to a discussion about a change to the proposal)
• we will accept collaborative partnership applications between VCSE organisations. However, one organisation must be prepared to act as the lead organisation with which the grant agreement can be made
• we reserve the right to make changes to the guidance after its launch. We will communicate any changes as quickly as we can