TD1317 - Provision of Community Based Volunteer Services: Edge of Care and Early Help

Derby City Council (the Council) is looking to procure an innovative community based service to support children, young people and families (the Service Users). The overall aim of the service is to safely prevent entry to and reduce the number of children and young people entering care within Derby City. The service will help maintain, where possible, children and young people within their families. The service will work using strengths based methods with families to enable them to build on their skills and develop their own strategies to manage difficulties; enabling them to manage difficult periods in their lives. The purpose of this community based support initiative is to provide an evidence-based, crisis intervention model which will strengthen Derby City Councils' Edge of Care interventions and provide direct support to children and young people and their families, usually over a period up to 6 months. The aim is to support families to make significant, positive changes by facilitating the growth and development of problem solving skills, building resilience and achieving positive, sustainable change by building on each family's strengths, enabling access to resources within their local community and introducing and strengthening current coping strategies. Widespread recognition and research shows that it is better to identify problems early and intervene effectively to prevent escalation than to respond only when the difficulty has become so acute as to demand action, such as neglect or family breakdown, when the young person may need to be taken into care. Derby City Council therefore wishes to work in partnership with providers in delivering a quick response to children and families in crisis to ensure that help is provided as soon as possible; addressing and overcoming the difficulties that have led to the family being at risk of breakdown, and prevent further escalation and referral to care proceedings. Please note, the deadline for returns is is 10:00 Monday 5th March 2018. It is recommended that you express interest and obtain the documentation well before this time to allow sufficient time to prepare and submit a comprehensive response. Select the 'apply online' link in the bottom right hand corner of this notice, this will transfer you to the Councils e-tendering system https://www.eastmidstenders.org where you can express interest and obtain the documents.