MERTON CHILDREN SCHOOLS AND FAMILIES
COMMISSIONING INTENTIONS PROSPECTUS
2013-16
CSF COMMISSIONING INTENTIONS 2013/14
Introduction
This document outlines commissioning intentions for the Children Schools and Families Department for the period April 2013 – March 2014, including Commissioning for General Early Intervention and Prevention, youth borough-wide Positive Activities, Preventative Services for Children with Disability, Rapid Response to support social care interventions and Transforming Families. .
The commissioning intentions are directly linked to the focus and priorities of our Children and Young People Plan (2012-15); improving outcomes for our most vulnerable groups, especially those children and young people that need Safeguarding, Looked After Children, those with Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities and those within the Youth Justice System, alongside Early Intervention to prevent the escalation of identified need.
These commissioning intentions are set within a context of change across the department and commissioned services, to ensure our service delivery for children and families in Merton is both configured towards delivering good and outstanding services and positioned to respond to a number of national and local drivers. These changes include:
- Redesigning our entry point for safeguarding concerns to incorporate the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) and its wider responsibilities.
- Configuration of a range of services into our Transforming Families Services operating at both statutory and preventative levels with older children, young people and their families.
- Establishing new enhanced level early intervention services via in-house teams and commissioned services.
- Youth Transformation Programme
- Sharper targeting of interventions to prevent escalation of need.
- Strengthening our quality assurance systems
Our commissioning intentions are grouped into broad categories under the overall umbrella of ‘Early Intervention and Prevention’ and are aimed at preventing the escalation of need. The categories are:
- General Early Intervention and Prevention.
- Preventative Services for Children with Disabilities including Short Breaks.
- Early Intervention – Youth Specific Positive Activities and Services for Young People.
- Prevention of Care.
- Transforming Families.
Early Intervention and Prevention
Merton’s Children’s Trust is committed to delivering outstanding services which improve outcomes and life chances for the borough’s children and young people with particular determination to help those facing particular challenges. Early Intervention and Prevention services help build resilience and strengthen protective factors in the lives of children and young people and their families, in order to increase their ability to meet these challenges and to overcome them.
Context
The refreshed Merton Early Intervention Strategy (EIS) will introduce a simplified Merton Child Well Being Model (MCWBM) and Assessment Framework. The MCWBM will move from 5 levels to 3, namely Universal, Enhanced and Specialist (see Diagram 1). The Enhanced Level is being created by building on current in-house services to develop the Supporting Families (0-5yrs) Enhanced Service and the Vulnerable Children (5-16yrs) Enhanced Service, both to be supported by a number of commissioned interventions.
The priority areas for general early intervention and prevention investment have been identified following evaluation of our current services (in-house and commissioned), tracking and examination of a number of high-cost cases, current evidence of what works and needs assessment.
Drivers
There are a number of drivers for changing the way early intervention is delivered in Merton. The financial context, changes to our demography, changes to the inspection regime and increasing knowledge and evidence of what works means that we are working with:
- Increasing population.
- Increasing diversity.
- Increasing complexity of issues and needs.
- The need to make savings.
- Increasing demand for early help and therefore the need to better target services at those with greatest need.
- The need to evidence impact of our early intervention services.
Preventative Services for Children with Disabilities, including Short Break Services
Early intervention and prevention services that focus specifically on families with children with disabilities, aiming to ensure that families with disabled children in Merton have the support they need to live ‘ordinary lives’ as a matter of course. We recognise that all families are different and therefore will need different levels of support, reflected in the range of services including advocacy, signposting and navigation through an often-complex system and short breaks.
Short Breaks provide disabled children and young people with an opportunity to spend time away from their parents or carers. Short breaks also provide families
and carers with a valuable break from their caring responsibilities; they give parents and carers a chance to unwind, rest or spend time with other children.
The full range of short break services offered in Merton include:
(a) Day-time care in the homes of disabled children or elsewhere,
(b) Overnight care in the homes of disabled children or elsewhere,
(c) Positive or leisure activities for disabled children outside their
homes, and
(d) Services available to assist carers in the evenings, at weekends and
during the school holidays.
Early Intervention – Youth Specific
Youth work helps young people learn about themselves, others and society, through informal positive activities, which in most cases combine enjoyment, challenge and learning. This prospectus outlines a range of targeted youth-specific activities that will help young people to continue in Education, Employment or Training (EET), prevent homelessness, and/or prevent or reduce involvement with anti-social behaviour and crime.
The Youth Transformation Programme provides a new and innovative approach to the way universal youth services are commissioned and delivered in Merton. This prospectus does not provide the detailed commissioning intentions for this programme that will invite further partnership bids from the Morden and Wimbledon localities following the pilot in these areas, nor does it provide the detailed commissioning intentions for one-year funding of positive activities in the Mitcham area as part of the role-out of the transformation programme across the borough.
Prevention of Care
When families present in crisis, with high-risk presentation, we often require rapid-response services that can provide practical hands-on help to improve parenting skills and to maintain and support children safely in their home in order to:
- Safely prevent the need for care proceedings
- To provide a safe period of time for social care to undertake in depth assessment and longer-term planning to appropriately address the needs of the child/children.
Similar episodes of intensive home-based intervention are required for those Looked After Children that are returning to their families.
There is a growing recognition of the importance of advocacy for children and young people when plans are being made for their lives. When we are deciding what should happen to a child or young person, we have to find out how they feel and what they want. An advocate can help us by independently explaining to the child or young person what is happening and why, appreciating their views and feelings and helping them to feel involved. This can help everyone to make better and timelier decisions. Working like this is not just good practice, it is also a legal requirement.
Transforming Families
‘Troubled Families’ is the government payment-by –results initiative to tackle the country’s most costly and troubling families. Merton council’s ‘Troubled Families’ initiative is called ‘Transforming Families’ (TF). TF builds on our previous Family Intervention Programme (FIP), working with our most vulnerable 370 families and providing practical hands-on support to help them achieve stability and improved quality of life. The key aims of the programme and any commissioned work are:
- Getting children back into school.
- Reducing criminal and/or anti-social behaviours.
- Parents on the road back into work.
Any success in this would lead to a reduction in costs to the taxpayer and to the council.
Principles and Values
These commissioning intentions are underpinned by the following set of key principles:
- We will work in partnership to maximise effectiveness and reduce barriers to services.
- We will continuously evaluate current and developing services and ensure they represent best practice, value for money and have clear impact on outcomes.
- We will ensure through monitoring and an outcomes-focus that work is directed at our priorities, as agreed with partners through our Children’s Trust arrangements.
- We will foster a culture that is flexible, innovative and responsive to change.
- We will embrace diversity and reduce inequalities.
- We will use open and transparent processes, which build confidence and trust across partnerships.
- We will promote the participation of children, young people and their families in the future planning and delivery of services.
- We will seek to use evidence-based interventions whenever possible to secure the best outcomes for our children, young people and families.
Alongside these, successful bids as part of the Youth Transformation will need to adhere to the Merton Youth Partnership design principles-‘The Values, Outcomes and Outputs for Youth Work In Merton’ and may also wish to refer to theYoung Foundation ‘Framework of Outcomes for Young People’.
Commissioning Standards
The use of Commissioning Standards provides one way of assuring the commissioner that prospective providers of services can fulfil agreed requirements for quality and that they can provide services that are ‘fit for purpose’.
In commissioning early intervention and prevention services for the Children Schools and Families Department, we will therefore be seeking to fund providers that are able to deliver services that:
- Safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people.
- Demonstrate value-for –money and effectiveness.
- Employ staff with the knowledge, skills and expertise to deliver the work commissioned.
- Demonstrate that they are user-focused, and promote the participation of children, young people and families in the future shaping of delivery of services.
- Promote inclusivity.
We will be looking to commission organisations that demonstrate that they understand and can meet the needs of our diverse population through the flexibility of delivery of services.
Quality and Governance
Services will be procured in line with our principles, values and commissioning standards. Contracts will be awarded in order to support the best value delivery of local authority services with consideration to quality, long-term cost and benefit as well as price. Final specifications will be based on achievable targets and outcomes that assist the Children Schools and Families Department to meet aims and objectives set within the Children and Young People Plan, measured through the Children’s Trust performance framework.
An effective framework for performance management is vital to ensure the appropriate management of services or contracts, and to achieve this we expect to:
- Set agreed targets and outcomes related to individual families and to the services procured.
- Regularly monitor progress against these targets and outcomes.
- Implement appropriate quality assurance processes.
- Audit safeguarding arrangements.
- Take effective action when issues arise or targets are not met.
It is expected that as part of the performance management of commissioned services, demonstration of the impact of services will involve the production of both quantitative and qualitative data, and a range of evaluation activities and methods.
Tender Process
Organisations are now invited to apply to deliver interventions as outlined in this prospectus. The tendering process will be one-stage, and the closing date for receiving applications is January 31st 2013. No application received after 5pm on that date will be considered. We welcome applications that encompass whole or elements of delivery for the priority areas as outlined. We would also welcome joint proposals from organisations wishing to co-deliver.
Prospective bidders are reminded to read this document carefully to ensure they are able to fulfil all requirements before completing an application. Application forms must be completed in full, ensuring clear demonstration of how key objectives will be met. All applications will be considered against a set of criteria (see below) by a panel that will make recommendations to the Director of Children Schools and Families. (As previously, we will invite representation from the community and voluntary sector to join the panel process, and will involve young people in the process in relation to Positive Activities). The Director’s decision will be final; there will be no appeals process. Applications may be submitted electronically via email, but a signed hard copy must also be sent (it is not essential that the signed copy is received by the deadline above).
Decisions will be sent to individual organisations by February 25th 2013. We will require chosen organisations to produce copies of their most recent audited accounts, policies (as laid out in the application form) and evidence of employers and public liability insurance prior to specifications being finalised. Agreements (Terms and Conditions and Specification combined document) will be signed by 31st March 2013 for commencement of delivery from or after April 1st 2013, and will be for up to 3 years.
Application Evaluation Criteria
All applications will be considered through a panel process (as above) using the following criteria:
- How well does the application demonstrate that the proposed activities and services would achieve the key objectives [highlighted in the following tables]?
- How well does the application demonstrate that the proposed activities and services would provide value-for-money?
- How well does the application demonstrate that proposed activities and services would be safe?
- How well does the application demonstrate an ability to work in partnership with other agencies?
- How well does the application demonstrate ways to meet the needs of a diverse population within the chosen priority area?
- How well does the application demonstrate commitment and ability to involve users/carers in the development and evaluation of activities/services?
- How well does the application demonstrate the use of delivery models that have been proven to be effective?
- How well does the application demonstrate that the proposed workforce (employed or volunteer) would have the skills to deliver the proposed activities/services safely, efficiently and effectively?
- Does the prospective provider have a robust delivery structure including an accountable body and established performance and financial management mechanisms?
The first three are essential criteria (highlighted in bold), and any applications submitted that do not satisfactorily meet these will not be considered further.
1
Priority Area / Indicative Amount Available(per annum) / Key Objectives / Types of Activity
GENERAL EARLY INTERVENTION AND PREVENTION
Parental Mental Health Support / £75,000 /- Improved parental self-confidence, motivation, coping mechanisms and mental health resilience.
- Improved parenting capacity.
- Improved family relationships.
- Ensure individuals have access to appropriate therapies.
- Provide insight into the impact of their mental health issues on their ability to parent effectively.
- Provide practical solutions to counter any impact of mental health issues on their children’s development, such as bonding and relationships, school attendance and punctuality, play and socialising.
- Provide advocacy when required.
- Provide a safe environment to explore ways to better manage their mental health.
Priority Area / Indicative Amount Available
(per annum) / Key Objectives / Types of Activity
Domestic Violence 1:1 Support / £25,000 /
- To ensure parents understand the impact of domestic abuse on their children.
- To ensure adult victims of abuse are fully informed about their rights and availability of local services.
- To ensure children are safeguarded from the impact of domestic violence.
- To work with children to minimise and alleviate the impact of domestic abuse.
- Provide advice about safety for themselves and their children.
- Provide insight into the impact of domestic violence on their children.
- Provide practical help and coping mechanisms.
- Allow children to explore and voice their feelings about what they have witnessed.
- Provide children with coping mechanisms.
Priority Area / Indicative Amount Available
(per annum) / Key Objectives / Types of Activity
Young Carers / £75,000 /
- The needs of young carers are widely known and understood.
- Young carers understand and are enabled to manage their caring role.
- Young carers are supported to ensure they do not take on inappropriate levels of care.
- Young carers are enabled to access positive activities.
- Young carers have the opportunity to extend and fulfil their education potential.
- Awareness raising/education/marketing to ensure young carers are identified and referred in a timely manner.
- Emotional support and confidence building,
- Advocacy and school liaison,
- Bullying,
- School attendance,
- Participation in positive activities,
- EET.
Priority Area / Indicative Amount Available
(per annum) / Key Objectives / Types of Activity
Family Support / £125,000 /
- Flexible support to enable and empower parents to grow in confidence with their parenting role.
- Non-stigmatising, acceptable support to families resistant to offers of support from statutory services.
- Work with vulnerable families as part of a child protection plan.
- Work with families as part of a planned exit (step down) from statutory intervention.