Aims/priorities: The priorities of the Best Start for Life Community Funding is to build the capacity of the VCFSE sector to support parents with 0-2 year olds facing challenges relating to the experiences and relationships with their developing baby, including:
- Reducing stigma around perinatal mental health
- Reaching and empowering diverse communities with respect to culture, disability, gender and family structure
- Inclusion of dads and co-parents
- Increasing access through digital offers
- Promote healthy parent-infant relationships, improve the emotional well-being of children and contribute to improved school readiness
- Build relationships with families to enable early identification of mental health issues and support accessibility to services
We are looking within Tameside for new or existing organisations who would like to expand their wellbeing offer and connect into the existing and growing offer around Family Hubs and perinatal mental health and parent-infant relationships, via a one-off grant.
The grant may enable existing organisations to fill a gap such as expanding times or accessibility, or reaching out to a wider range of care givers including foster carers, fathers and co-parents.
The successful applicants would form part of the PPIMH network across Tameside to prevent silo-working, be encouraged to take up workforce training offers and collect mutually agreed data to measure the outcomes of the project, relating to the size of the project.
Successful applicants will also have an opportunity to access to general awareness training around PPIMH.
Who can apply? For the last round of funding, to maintain sustainability of existing projects, previous applicants can apply for small grants and microgrants, whilst local grassroots organisations can apply for microgrants for a specific project.
Organisations can apply for projects of up to 6-9 months but must be able to demonstrate measurable outcomes in 6 months by March 2025. All monitoring should be completed by June 2025.
To be eligible to apply, an organisation must:
- Be a VCFSE organisation who have completed a recent Action Together Membership Form (membership is free).
- Be constituted/have a written set of rules that constitute what they do (governing document).
- Be based in Tameside or currently delivering in Tameside.
- Have or be developing experience of parental support and working with expectant parents or parents with children aged 0-2.
Grant amount: Groups can apply for:
- Micro grant of up to £1,000
- Small grant - between £1,000 - £10,000
Application process: Please consider your eligibility and commitment to the values and expectations of this grant scheme before making an application by carefully reading these guidance notes.
Application forms can be found here:
BSfL small grants 23-25 Application Form
BSfL Microgrants 23-25 Application Form
This is the last application round which will span from August to September.
Decisions made on – Mon 9 September 2024 (Groups to hear back the following week)
Organisations will be expected to complete an application form and submit this via email to funding@actiontogether.org.uk
Overall decisions will be made by the multiagency Best Start for Life PPIMH Steering Group represented by the Strategic Commissioning Lead, Home-Start, Early Attachment Service and Action Together and the group will meet at the end of the application period to review each application. Action Together will carry out all due diligence and will recommend applications but will not be responsible for the overall decisions.
Deadline: Thurs 5 September 2024
Contact information: For more information about the fund please contact our funding team at funding@actiontogether.org.uk