Procurement description
Strengthening Families Together: Families First Programme - Parenting Support
Divided into 3 Lots
Background/Context
Families First is designed to improve outcomes for children, young people and families. It places an emphasis on early intervention, prevention, and providing support for whole families, rather than individuals. The programme promotes greater multi-agency working to ensure families receive joined-up support when they need it. The intention of the programme is to provide early support for families with the aim of preventing problems escalating. Families First Programme Guidance April 2017.
Families’ First principles
Services provided through the programme should take account of the following guiding principles:
• Family-focussed – services should take a whole family approach to improving outcomes.
• Bespoke – services should be tailored to individual family circumstances.
• Empowering – services should seek to empower families to take control of their lives, to give them an increased sense of ownership and investment in their outcomes.
• Integrated - services should be effectively coordinated and planned to ensure a seamless progression for families between different interventions and programmes.
• Intensive – a vigorous approach and relentless focus must be maintained which can adapt to families’ changing circumstances.
• Local – services should address the needs of local communities and, where possible, seek opportunities to link in with other local programmes, including Flying Start and Supporting People
• Pro-active – seeking early identification of need and securing appropriate interventions in a timely way.
• Sustainable – services should always seek to provide long-term sustainable solutions. They should seek to address the root causes of problems and not 5 just the symptoms to enable families to continue to progress after intervention has ceased.
Wrexham County Borough Council has undertaken Preliminary Market Engagement work to support us to make informed decisions by understanding the demand, capacity, and capability for delivering services. This was used alongside nationally, locally available data to inform and support us when shaping the commissioning strategy and model.
All Services Specifications
Please note the following, which provides an overview of the priorities for these provisions.
1. Services should take a whole family approach to improving outcomes and should be tailored to individual family circumstances. There should be a focus on developing a more joined-up, responsive service provision across partner organisations that puts the unique needs of families at its heart.
2. Services should seek to empower children, young people and families to take control of their lives, to give them an increased sense of ownership and investment in their outcomes. They should be effectively coordinated and planned to ensure a seamless progression for children, young people and families between different interventions and programmes and should be flexible so they can adapt to children, young people and families’ changing circumstances.
3. Services should provide early help in a timely way and should link in with other local programmes and statutory provision, including TAC, WFIS, Flying Start, Additional Learning Needs support and other provision for children and young people and parents.
4. Services should always seek to provide long-term sustainable solutions and should encourage independence, not service dependence; they should seek to address the root causes of problems and not just the symptoms to enable children, young people and families to continue to progress after intervention has ceased.
5. We want children from all backgrounds have the best start in life, giving everyone the opportunity to reach their full potential and maximise their chances of leading a healthy, prosperous and fulfilling adulthood, enabling them to participate fully in communities, the workplace, and contribute to the future economic success of Wales.
6. We want to drive down waiting lists for statutory, early help and support services in order to provide support as early as possible and reduce the risk of escalating needs.
7. We want to ensure that provision is available to children, young people and families in different communities and different kinds of parents / carers, and would be interested in bids that target particular harder to reach communities, such as:
a. Polish Families
b. Traveller families
c. BAME families
d. Refugee / Asylum Seeker families.
e. Families affected by substance misuse, mental health and domestic abuse.
f. Families affected by disability.
g. Families affected by imprisonment.
h. Young parents
i. Fathers and male carers
All commissioned services must be available for any children, young people and families living in Wrexham to access, provided the service is suitable for them and would meet their needs.
The Service to be provided.
Parenting Support: Total Maximum Value £160,000 per annum
The primary focus for Parenting Support is to empower parents to create a stable, nurturing environment through positive modelling and supporting parents to set and maintain appropriate boundaries with their child or children. The services will look to enhance positive parenting skills, increase confidence, improving family relationships, understanding child’s development, promoting good mental health and emotional wellbeing. The services should provide a mixture of targeted support and universal open access and be responsive to the identified needs of the parents.
All commissioned services will be expected to promote and support wellbeing as a core priority, embedding approaches that enhance emotional, physical and social wellbeing into delivery under the legal duty to contribute to the seven national wellbeing goals of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.
Service Providers must demonstrate how they will deliver interventions across multiple communities within Wrexham, ensuring equitable access and responsiveness to local needs. Consideration should be given to how services will be inclusive, culturally competent and adaptable to the diverse needs of the communities of Wrexham.
Parenting Support has been divided into 3 Lots. Service Providers may choose to tender for one or more Lots on the basis that they have sufficient capacity to meet the requirements of each Lot. Service Providers who are tendering for more than one Lot must be in a position to accept the Lots they are successful for and not hand back any Lot due to capacity issues