Progress: Building Better Opportunities for young people across Coventry & Warwickshire - Specialist Partner

Descriptions

Groundwork UK is looking for a Specialist Partner or Partners to help support the high proportion of young people engaging with Progress who are demonstrating mild to moderate mental health concerns. These conditions are both diagnosed and undiagnosed, and can act as a barrier to the young person progressing into education, employment, or training. The specialist service should be designed to address local need in Coventry and/ or Warwickshire, offering a rapid, responsive service to Progress participants, and that helps the programme dovetail effectively with other, existing mental health services. Proposals are sought from organisations that can help increase the scope and variety of services that Progress Coaches are able to offer young people, helping to build the confidence and skills needed to progress toward positive outcomes, and to remove barriers. Consultation with existing partners has highlighted high concentrations of low level mental health concerns amongst the young people engaged in Progress to date, with the need for an appropriate, responsive service to help address and manage these concerns. It is anticipated that severe or chronic mental health conditions will need to be referred to existing health services. Prospective partners should outline the format of their proposed offer in the tender submission document, demonstrating why they deem this to be an effective approach to addressing mild to moderate mental health concerns amongst the target group. This could be in the form of 1-1 counselling or therapeutic services and support, group sessions focused on positive mental health, workshops responding to the needs of the young people on programme, support for Progress Coaches working with young people who are experiencing poor mental health, CPD for staff working on the project, or a combination of these and other approaches. Participants access Specialist Partner support via a referral from their Progress Coach. Whilst accessing specialist provision, the young person will also continue to work with their Progress Coach. Specialist Partners and Progress Coaches work closely to track the progress of participants and ensure that they are taking the maximum benefit from the programme. Ideally the new partner(s) will be able to deliver services across Coventry & Warwickshire, but proposals from organisations delivering in specific areas without coverage across all areas will be considered. In these circumstances the full budget would be distributed across a number of successful tenderers. A total of £72,000 is available for the delivery of additional activity for young people across Coventry & Warwickshire. This must provide activities for a minimum of 72 young people, with value for money a key consideration in the assessment of proposals from potential partners. Proposals that can support considerably more than the minimum number of young people, whilst continuing to offer a quality service are welcomed.