Manchester Alliance for Community Care

BBC Children in Need Funding
BBC Children in Need have two further deadlines for applications in 2009: July 15 and September 15. They welcome applications from groups within the voluntary and community sector that work to positively change the lives of children and young people in the United Kingdom. Children must be aged 18 years and under, living in the UK and meet one of the definitions of disadvantage:

illness, distress, neglect, abuse
any kind of disability
behaviour or psychological difficulties
living in poverty or situations of deprivation

BBC Children in Need's regional staff can advise on types of projects and organisations we can fund. They highly recommend that you discuss your application with a member of the North Regional team before applying. To discuss your application, please call Philip Jeffery on 0161 244 3442 or e-mail Philip.Jeffery@bbc.co.uk and they will respond to your query within 48 hours.

Youth Work Tender
Similar to the Parenting and Family Support tender, the City Council has launched (on 11th November) a tender for the provision of Youth Work by voluntary and community sector groups. The deadline is no later than 4pm on Monday 1st December. More information on both the City Council and MACC websites:

Improving Safeguarding for Adults
A consultation on the review of No Secrets guidance for safeguarding adults has been launched. How can the voluntary and community sector contribute to the development of better tools to safeguard adults from abuse and improve our own processes and procedures? Reconciling safeguarding with the personalisation agenda was discussed at the Manchester Older People's Network meeting in October and voluntary sector organisations agreed to meet to discuss the review in more detail in late November.

Parenting Fund - Round Three now open
Round 3 of the Parenting Fund is now open. Here are the headlines:

The total grant fund is just over £16 million over a two-year period (£8 million per year)
It can only be used in the 23 English local government areas listed below
Grants can cover more than one area
It is open to “not for profit” organisations but excludes statutory services
The grants will be for 24 months and the first payments will be made in April 2009.
The amount applied for must be at least £50,000 for the two-year period but there is no upper limit.
Organisations can apply to work in more than one area
Funded projects are expected to deliver learning and outcomes that can be picked up nationally.
Threre remains a focus on promoting social inclusion and improving access to services and support for less well-served communities.
The localities are: Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Redcar and Cleveland, South Tyneside, Blackburn with Darwen, Liverpool, City of Manchester, Leeds, North East Lincolnshire, Derby, Leicester, Nottingham, Stoke on Trent, Birmingham, Peterborough, Norfolk, Croydon, Greenwich, Hackney, Southwark, Slough, Southampton, Cornwall, Bristol.
Completed applications must be submitted by noon on Friday December 12th 2008.
Assessment, decisions and award making will take place between December 2008 and January 2009.

UPDATE - See Dates for Your Diary for details of a meeting to discuss joint working on bids to the Parenting Fund

Hate Crime Research
Reported crime against disabled people has come to the fore in recent years, yet there is no agreed or common understanding of what disability hate crime is. Breakthrough UK has obtained funding from the Equality and Human Rights Commission to find out more about the way organisations define and respond to reports of hate crime, or related incidents. The main aim of this study is to develop and share greater understanding of disability hate crime, and how this compares with understanding about hate crime toward other groups.
Even if you think organisation does not do anything in this area your response will help the research. The survey can be downloaded below and should take about 20 minutes to complete. Please return the questionnaire to Breakthrough UK by Monday 27th October. There will be a conference in March 2009 to launch the report of the findings of this study.

NHS Constitution
The Government has published a proposed constitution for the National Health Service. This is intended as a statement of the values of the NHS and people's rights to free services. The consultation runs until 17th October 2008. If you have views to you wish to feed in, you can send them directly to the Department of Health via the consultation details on their website or contact MACC and we will include your comments in our response.

Tender opportunity: Mental Health Criminal Justice Liaison Service
The Manchester Mental Health Joint Commissioning Team (JCT) is currently tendering for a city-wide mental health criminal justice liaison service in Manchester for people who:

have a mental disorder or illness,
have a history of offending or offending behaviours,
are using substances in a problematic way and / or
have a personality disorder and multiple complex risk behaviours.

Interested organisations can obtain a full tender pack by contacting the Joint Commissioning Team by email at: jointcommissioningteam@manchester.nhs.uk or by phone on 0161 237 2826. All completed tender submissions must be received by 12 noon on Friday 12th September 2008.

have a mental disorder or illness,
have a history of offending or offending behaviours,
are using substances in a problematic way and / or
have a personality disorder and multiple complex risk behaviours.

Third Sector Survey
The Office of the Third Sector is carrying out a Third Sector Flexibility Survey addressed to third sector organisations that are currently delivering public services or have been involved in their delivery in the last 12 months. The survey is a follow up to the Cabinet Office publication “Excellence and Fairness: Achieving world class public services”. Through it the Office for the Third Sector aims to improve its understanding of what supports and drives innovation in Third Sector public service delivery. If your organisation is currently involved or has been involved in public service delivery in the last 12 months, please take the time to complete the survey and return it by 8 September 2008. Click here to complete the survey. Please return this survey even if it is incomplete. All answers are valuable.

Manchester Infrastructure Support Survey
Manchester City Council has launched a consultation survey on the support services currently available for voluntary and community sector organisations. These are currently being provided by Novas Scarman Trust The information provided will identify how the current service is being used and gaps in provision - which will shape the tender for the new contrct for this work. MACC strongly encourages all local voluntary sector organisations to take part in this survey: there is a clear need to develop the range of support available to the sector and this is the big opportunity to communicate that message to the people who commission the service. Follow the link below to take part. The deadline is 30th September 2008.
A hard copy of the questionnaire can be downloaded from the City Council website or is available from: The Third Sector Team, Corporate Performance Group, Manchester City Council, PO Box 532, Manchester M60 2LA tel: 0161 234 3141.

Urgent Care in Central Manchester
Manchester Primary Care Trust, working with Central Manchester Practice Based Commissioning Group and Manchester City Council, is developing a full specification for urgent care services in Central Manchester. They are asking providers including the voluntary and community sector to contribute to the "design stage" - this will ultimately shape the service specification. If you're interested in contributing to this, you should contact the Greater Manchester Commissioning Business Service (link below) by 20th August 2008.

Towards a strategy to support volunteering in health and social care
"Consultation Workshops” at the Gujarat Centre (GHS Enterprise Ltd), Preston on the 8th September 2008. The Department of Health recognises that volunteering plays a huge potential role in the context of more flexible, responsive and patient-focused health and social care services. This consultation exercise is designed to discuss and debate the five key elements of the “Towards a strategy to support volunteering in health and social care document”

Support for individual volunteers
Effective management within organisations
Commissioning environment and infrastructure
Promoting partnership
Leadership

This is one of nine regional workshops being held across England by the Department of Health in conjunction with CSIP NW. The consultation will end on 30th September 2008. To access the consultation on line click on the link below. If you are able to attend please complete the attached booking form and returning to philip.jones@csip.org.uk Alternatively, you can fax the form to 0161 351 4936.

Support for individual volunteers
Effective management within organisations
Commissioning environment and infrastructure
Promoting partnership
Leadership

Consultation on registration of health and adult social care providers
The Department of Health is seeking views on the future of regulation of health and adult social care. It considers which health and adult social care services should require registration with the Care Quality Commission and what the requirements for registration should be. It also asks at what point providers of regulated services should be required to have a registered manager and how primary care services should be included in the new system.

Consultation on GP services in Manchester
Manchester Primary Care Trust is planning to open a new GP-led Health Centre in the City Centre and seeking comments and views on the new service. The link below is for the PCT's online survey of people's views (5 questions) and contains some information about the new service.

Paper copies of the questions are available by emailing talkinghealth@manchester.nhs.uk or telephone 0161 217 4311 / 0161 945 3178. You can also send comments and views to the PCT through their freepost address: Talking Health, FREEPOST RRSS-EKKJ-RRKY, Baguley Clinic, M23 1NA

Department of Health Funding news
The Department of Health has recently released news of two new funding streams which will be of interest to voluntary sector organisations.

>User-led Organisations Development Fund<
This is about supporting shared learning between organisations which are demonstrably led by service users (such as having a majority of service users on its Management Committee).

>Social Enterprise Development Fund<
This is to help new or existing social enterprises or organisations which are moving towards a social enterprise model - the aim of the fund is to help such groups develop and increase capacity to delivery health and social care services. The funds are seen as an investment and come in various forms such as loans, grants and equity capital.

Children and Young People's Plan Review - consultation
The draft Review of the Children and Young People's Plan has now been published on the MCC Website for consultation, and can be viewed <here>. The closing date for the consulation period is 25 May and the deadline for submission to GONW is 14 June.

The Children and Young People’s Plan (CYPP) is a very important document for all of Manchester’s children and young people, their parents and carers and for all those people who work with and support them. The Plan brings together in one place the top priorities for everyone working in Children’s Services and sets out the actions required to improve outcomes and life chances for Manchester’s children.

Manchester has agreed with Government 8 key priorities for Children’s Services for 2007/08, these are:

Glossary of terms
People say that a lack of common language is one of the key barriers to working effectively. This glossary has been produced to promote and faciliate communication across different agencies and sectors. Click here

Manchester Local Involvement Network
The "Local Involvement Network" or LINk is the new arrangement for involving the local community in the the planning and review of health and social care services. Manchester starting is one of several pilot schemes across the country. These are intended to see how LINks could actually work and have a real visible influence on local services.
To plan this work, an event is being staged during March to gather people's views. Details of the work so far, the Government's intentions and information about the event are available in the new LINk newsletter >click here< to view it (PDF file).

Manchester Local Involvement Network
The "Local Involvement Network" or LINk is the new arrangement for involving the local community in the the planning and review of health and social care services. Manchester starting is one of several pilot schemes across the country. These are intended to see how LINks could actually work and have a real visible influence on local services.
To plan this work, an event is being staged during March to gather people's views. Details of the work so far, the Government's intentions and information about the event are available in the new LINk newsletter >click here< to view it (PDF file).

Integrated Commissioning and District Collaboration Project - Briefing Note

Services to children across Manchester will be delivered in a more cohesive and efficient way through the forging of effective partnerships under the integrated commissioning and district collaboration project.

Introduced as a result of the Children Act 2004, integrated commissioning and district collaboration will require all agencies to work together and adopt a common approach to deliver co-ordinated services which place the needs of children and young people at the centre.

Commissioning in this context is not just about procurement and purchasing but about specifying requirements to meet the specific needs of children and young people, securing those services and evaluating their effectiveness.

It will look specifically at the five outcomes of staying safe, being healthy, enjoying and achieving, contributing positively and achieving economic well-being.

The result will be improvements in early intervention and prevention, more effective multi-disciplinary working, the removal of duplication of services and increase efficiency as well as accountability.

Pilots have already taken place in three of the six Manchester districts using Children’s Fund monies to commission Family and Parenting Support services. In North East Manchester, the Commissioning Panel decided they wanted to commission family and parenting support through services which worked with groups of schools, where there was an identified need. This would mean that services would intervene early, be preventative and work with schools in an integrated way to identify where support is most needed. The experience from these pilots is being used to help develop integrated commissioning across all six districts.

Key milestones over the coming months will be determining the Commissioning Statement for the City, together with ensuring that the district panels are in place by April 2007, and the appointment of project workers to support these panels. Once established, the district panels, with senior representation from partner agencies, will begin to analyse the needs of children and young people in their area in order that they can begin to assess which services require commissioning.

Parenting Strategy (Oct 06)
Manchester City Council has worked closely with partners, including the Child & Family Support Forum to agree a Positive and Responsible Parenting Strategy for the city. The strategy recognises that parents are the most important influence on their child's future, and identifys how services can work with parents to give children the best possible start in life. The strategy is very much a work in progress and will be further developed over the coming months - so feedback and comments are welcomed. You can download a copy of the strategy and summary documents here.

Children & Young People's Plan - Executive Summary Now Available! (June 06)
Manchester published its Children and Young People's Plan at the end of March this year. The Plan is the single, strategic, overarching plan for all local services for children and young people, for example health services, police, local authority and voluntary sector organisations. It sets out a vision for children and young people and identifies how outcomes for children and young people can be best improved.

The Plan will need to be flexible to take account of the fast pace of change in the sector - including this year, for example, the outcome of the Joint Area Review. Nevertheless, it is important staff in all children and young people's services have a good awareness of the content of the Plan and so a summary version has been produced. It is now available on the City Council's web pages.

Staff without easy access to the internet can request copies by mailto:jcu@manchester.gov.uk

Mental Capacity Act 2005 research - consultation
he Mental Capacity Act 2005 provides a statutory framework for people who may not be able to make their own decisions, for example because of a learning difficulties, an illness such as dementia or brain injury or mental health problems. It sets out who can take decisions, in which situations, and how they should go about this.
The Act enshrines in statute current best practice and common law principles concerning people who lack mental capacity and those who take decisions on their behalf. In Section 30 to 34, the Act also provides a statutory framework for research involving people who lack capacity to consent to their participation. These provisions balance the importance of properly conducted research into the treatment or care of people who lack capacity with the need to protect their interests and respect their current and previously expressed wishes and feelings.

The Department of Health is consulting on draft research regulations under the Act, which provide detailed policy on a number of issues where broad outlines were given in the primary legislation. We are seeking views on:

whether the proposed arrangements for appointing the appropriate body that approves research are suitable?

whether the proposed arrangements for research involving people who consented but then lost capacity strike the right balance between the need to allow long-term research to continue whilst respecting the past and present wishes of participants?

More information from the Department of Health website >HERE<

Children & Young People's Plan (April 06)
You can download the Children and Young People's Plan for Manchester > here <. The Plan is the single, strategic, overarching plan for all local services for children and young people, for example health services, police, local authority and voluntary organisations. It sets out a vision for children and young people and identifies how outcomes for children and young people can be best improved.

Common Assessment Framework pilot in Wythenshawe (March 06)
The Common Assessment Framework (CAF) is a key component in the Every Child Matters: Change for Children programme and is a new standardised approach to carrying out an assessment of the needs of a child or young person and deciding how those needs should be met. You can find more information about the CAF > here <

Single Children and Young People's Plan for Manchester (Nov 05)
The long-awaited draft of the new single plan for the future of services for children, young people and families in Manchester is now out for consultation. MACC is supporting a series of three conferences to build a collective response from the local voluntary and community sector but groups may also wish to submit their own responses. To download a copy of the plan and a consultation questionnaire, visit http://www.manchester.gov.uk/education/cypp/ The deadline for responses is 30th November 2005. We will keep you updated as work on the Plan progresses. For more information, please click on "contact us" in the top right hand corner of this page.

New Every Child Matters Guidance Documents Published (Aug 05)
The Children Act 2004 provides the legal underpinning for Every Child Matters: Change for Children – the programme aimed at transforming children’s services. A series of documents have been published which provide guidance under the act, to support local authorities and their partners in implementing new statutory duties:

Interagency Cooperation to Improve the Well-being of Children: Children's Trusts

Guidance on the Children & Young People's Plan

Guidance on the Roles and Responsibilities of the Director of Children's Services and the Lead Member for Children's Services

Local Safeguarding Children's Boards

Working Together to Safeguard Children

You can download these documents > here <. At the same time an overview of these and other guidance supporting the ECM programme has been published.

New district and localities map for the City of Manchester (July 05)
Based on original ward boundaries, new boundaries for districts in Manchester have been set. All district commissioning of services will be based on these boundaries. You can access this map > here <

Guidance on involving the voluntary and community sector in Children's Trusts (July 05)
The Department for Education and Skills has published advice aimed at supported local authorities, other public sector agencies and voluntary and community organisations in developing effective relations for involving the voluntary and community sector in Children's Trusts arrangements. You can access this report > here <

Guidance on working with voluntary & community groups (June 2005)
The Department for Education and Skills has developed a strategy for working with the voluntary and community sector to deliver change for children and young people. The strategy looks at what the DfES will do to strengthen its national relationship with voluntary organisations that work with children, young people and families. It explains what the Government is doing, through the Every Child Matters: Change for Children programme, to support effective working with voluntary and community organisations at local level. You can access this report > here <

The Children's Workforce Strategy: a strategy to build a world-class workforce for children & young
This sets out the Government's vision forthe children's workforce, identifies and key challenges in meeting this vision and invluces proposals to develop a national single qualifications freameowrk to imprvoe careers pathways and progression opportunities for the workforce. You can download it > here <

The Common Assessment Framework (CAF)
This provides a common approach to needs assessment that can be used by the whole children's workforce. You can download it > here <

Good Practice Guide for work with family members affected by someone else's drug use (May 05)
This is recent guidance on good practice and quality standards for services for families affected by drug use. You can access this report > here <

Improving the life chances of disabled people (March 2005)
This is a cross-government report: independent living, support for families - more details > here <

Children & Young People and Crime (March 2005)
Report about how children and young people are under-acknowledged as the victims of crime based on consultation with 10-15 year olds. Read it > here <

Education and Youth Crime (February 2005)
How does participation in education prevent young people getting involved in criminal behaviour? The introduction of the educational maintenance allowance as a means of enticing young people to remain in / return to education has had some impact….more details > here <

NHS Guidance on domestic violence (Nov 2004)
This new guidance, linked to the National Service Framework, places a duty on ante-natal services to monitor whether women are experiencing domestic violence during pregnancy. Click >>

Extended Schools (Oct 2004)
The very useful site Teachernet.gov.uk includes a briefing on the concept of "Extended Schools". It can be found here: Click >>