Expression of interest: HeadStart Knowsley – Stage 3

Big Lottery Fund have made a significant investment through their HeadStart programme to help equip young people (aged 10-16) to deal better with difficult circumstances in their lives, improve mental wellbeing and build resilience, so as to help prevent them experiencing common mental health problems. Further information is available on the Big Lottery Fund website

https://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/headstart

Knowsley was one of twelve local areas that received funding from the HeadStart programme to successfully develop (Stage 1) and deliver (Stage 2) a programme of activity between September 2014 and December 2015. The Stage 2 element of the HeadStart programme was based on a local “test and learn” approach and we trialled new ways of providing early support and preventative work in school, in the community, in the family and also through digital interaction. The learning from this stage has been used to develop a proposal to bid for a 5 year programme of activity (Stage 3) that, if successful, will run from September 2016 to August 2021. We will learn if we are successful with our bid in June 2016.

The key learning from Stage 2 includes:

• The need to create a local system that has a greater emphasis on prevention and early intervention and has the needs of young people at its core.
• The need to work with our communities and young people, understand their values and emphasise them as our key local assets.
• The need to adopt an “inter relational” approach, that sees young people, parents, teachers, community groups etc. working together.
• The need to adopt a “whole community” approach based on encouraging the development of individual skills, providing access to the right information at the right time, signpost to relevant expert services and resources when needed and tackle the wider determinants of unequal health in our communities.

With this in mind, our Stage 3 programme proposal has been developed with both universal and targeted elements. If successful, we will be working across the Borough of Knowsley with upto 38 schools (6 of which are secondary schools) and upto 18 community groups. We will also be working with groups of young people who are seen as being particularly high risk – young people affected by domestic abuse, young people not in mainstream education, young carers and high achievers,

We used the Stage 2 programme to develop a core programme of activity that includes evidence based practices and interventions that have been evaluated and shown positive outcomes locally. These include mindfulness, cognitive behavioural coaching, emotional first aid training and restorative practices.

Providers should express their interest in one of four areas of work by completing the attached form and submitting it back to us via the chest by 9:30am on 15 April 2016