Market Engagement Event - Family Support Packages for Dorset Families

As you may be aware Dorset County Council currently contracts with a number of providers as part of a framework arrangement to provide targeted family support for Dorset residents who are engaged with a wide range of partners both internal and external to the County Council. A whole family approach is key to this and workers can access additional support packages designed around the family or individuals but generally not in a group setting. These additional resources are accessed via the Dorset Families Matter (DFM) programme, which is the local implementation of the national Troubled Families initiative.

The services available through the framework have a central role in helping to deal with problems experienced by children, young people and their families. It also brokers access to a range of more specialist services.

This contract will be ending on 31st January 2018 and to comply with procurement regulations Dorset County Council will be inviting tenders this summer for services within the main service categories, which are currently shown below but maybe subject to some amendment as we go forward:

• Mentoring and Befriending;
• Mediation;
• Therapeutic Services;
• Counselling;
• Parenting and Family Support includes the co-parenting relationship;
• Employability Opportunities;
• Learning and Personal Development;
• Positive Activities;
• Other – Brokerage of bespoke packages of support.

The provision is required across Dorset’s 6 District and Borough Council localities (see below) or within a 5 mile radius of their boundaries:
• Weymouth and Portland
• West Dorset
• North Dorset
• East Dorset
• Purbeck
• Christchurch

We wish to engage with providers of services to:
• inform prospective providers about the tender opportunity.
• update on the embedding of the DFM approach across a range of services.
We are interested in hearing from organisations that either have new innovative ideas about services for families, children and/or young people, and/or experience and expertise in providing any of the above services.

If this is of interest to your organisation then we would like to invite you to attend an event on Thursday 4th May (9:45am for a 10am start with a 12 noon finish) in Wimborne.

If you are interested in attending the event please reply to me by email at c.chesters@dorsetcc.gov.uk as soon as possible and by no later than 4:00pm on Thursday, 13th April. Please indicate the number of representatives that you plan to be in attendance and note we may need to limit attendees to 1 or 2 spaces per organisation/provider.

We look forward to hearing from you and will provide you with details of the location and a draft agenda once you have been confirmed attendance at the event.