Local Authorities Sought to Partner with Government on Family Hubs – Growing Up Well Programme
Funding available to local authorities in England with high levels of need and basic or higher levels of data maturity to partner with the Department for Education (DfE) on the Family Hubs – Growing Up Well project.
The Family Hubs – Growing Up Well project is a key part of the government’s commitment to championing Family Hubs and was funded directly by HM Treasury through the Shared Outcomes Fund.
The Family Hubs – Growing Up Well project will largely work across education, health and social care to improve outcomes for vulnerable and disadvantaged families, young people and children.
The project aims to address two key complex issues:
- Information sharing – improve how information is shared between professionals who work with families in a Family Hub
- Access and navigation – improve the ‘user experience’ for vulnerable and disadvantaged families who need to access services through a Family Hub.
To support the practical implementation of Family Hubs, the Department for Education (DfE) will partner with five local areas who will engage in a digital discovery process with the Family Hub – Growing Up Well team. The first two local area partners were successfully recruited in Spring 2021, and the DfE are now seeking to recruit the final three partners.
The three new partners will work with digital specialists at the DfE to explore, develop and test, data and digital products across the age range of conception to 19 (or up to 25 with SEND). The new partners will work on either the ‘information sharing’ or ‘access and navigation’ strands and LAs will be given the opportunity to state whether they do not wish to be considered for either strand. DfE reserves the right to make the final decision on the focus for each local area that is selected.
Only the 151 top tier LAs may submit an application.
A maximum of one application form per LA can be submitted.
The total funding is approximately £1.7m.
The allocation of funding will be scalable and determined by the needs identified in the discovery phase of the project. All local area partners will receive an initial instalment of £30,000 to support staff resourcing of the discovery process. This funding is subject to change, depending on the length of time required for the discovery process.
Applications must be submitted by the deadline of 12 September 2021 (11:59pm).
(This report was the subject of a GRANTfinder Newsflash.)
