Community and parent led support grant

Parenting matters for babies’ and children’s well-being and early development, especially during early childhood – when babies are totally reliant on their primary caregivers. 

90% of a child's brain growth happens before the age of 5. Right from the start, all those little moments spent together are building their brains.

Every smile, cuddle, chat, and game make a huge difference, helping them learn to communicate, develop confidence and make friends.

There is £10,000 of funding available with this grant.

Grant purpose

We are seeking to develop the provision of community and peer lead support activities in our Main Family Hub sites with a focus on:

• parent/carer confidence in supporting baby/child development, including in the home learning environment
• early language acquisition
• Social Capital and creating networks of support

Read more about our Best Start in Life plan, Family Hubs, and the local operating context.

Reporting requirements

The project group would like to keep in touch with the Grant recipients regularly during the initial delivery in the Autumn and meet at least six monthly thereafter. The indicators to be measured and reported are:

• number of parents and carers accessing support.
• parents and carers feel confident in supporting their child's development.
• parents and carers feel confident to use their family hub, participate in community activities and access services

We would also like organisations to design their own additional impact measures, such as number of parents becoming volunteers, and qualitative reporting such as case studies or video pieces.

Guiding Information

Early learning and development - Start for Life - NHS
The Balanced System speech, language and communication pathway

Evaluation of bids for this project

Evaluators will score each bid across the following five areas, each equally weighted at 20% of the total score.

• existing community presence, ability to resource the project sufficiently to deliver across the grant period, and work with partners to develop best practice. 
• parent/carer confidence in supporting baby/child development, including in the home learning environment
• early language acquisition
• Social Capital and creating networks of support
• inclusivity, understanding the different needs of parents, carers, and their children, and a plan for how parents and carers can shape and/or lead the service

When drafting your application, you may wish to consider the following questions (this list is not exhaustive and is provided as a guide only):

• Can the support be mobilised using existing staff and volunteer networks?
• Your knowledge and experience from delivering similar projects, and commitment to evaluate and share best practice?
• How will evidence-based approaches be utilised in the Family Hub sessions?
• How will parents/carers be supported to implement these approaches in the home? 
• How will parents/carers be supported to access further existing community resource and build family resilience?
• How will the organisation ensure an equitable and accessible offer to all parents, carers and children?
• How will the needs, and the feedback of families shape the future development of the offer?

Terms and conditions

All applicants will need to evidence the following prior to confirmation of award and release of funds (documentation upload at the point of application is mandatory for the larger grants projects):

• Constitution, articles of association, or set of rules 
• Public Liability and Employers Liability Insurance where applicable
• Safeguarding and Safer Recruitment policy
• Asset Lock Statement (CIC’s only) and charitable objectives clause

We reserve the right to request further documentation upon the advice of our Legal or Contracts team.

The terms and conditions for all awards are:  

• the grant can be claimed in full at the commencement of the project. To claim the grant the recipient must accept all the terms and conditions of the grant offer
• applicants will be asked to sign a standard grant agreement with full details of their grant award including terms and conditions
• applications must be submitted on the online form provided by Dorset Council
• decisions made by the grant evaluation panel for the spending of this funding are final and there is no appeals process
• Dorset Council will not accept/consider any applications received after the closing date of 11:59pm on Sunday 6 October 2024  
• partial grant awards may be made (if this has a detrimental impact on the delivery of the planned intervention, we will be open to a discussion about a change to the proposal)
• we will accept collaborative partnership applications between VCSE organisations. However, one organisation must be prepared to act as the lead organisation with which the grant agreement can be made
• we reserve the right to make changes to the guidance after its launch. We will communicate any changes as quickly as we can