Manchester Alliance for Community Care

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 and Family Support Commissioning
The City Council has now released details of the first part of the commissioning process for 2009-20011. The deadline for submissions is 24th November 2008. The details are available on the Council list of current tenders on the Council website - click on the link below. We’ve also put more background information on the MACC website under Commissioning 2009-11. This includes an FAQ and contact details for support. We’ll upload details of the other commissioning streams there too as they emerge.

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

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

Children Young People and Families Grant
This is a national programme to fund work by the third sector to improve outcomes for children, young people and families. The outcomes expected from this funded work are embedded in the Children Act 2004, the Every Child Matters outcomes and the Children's Plan. The deadline for receipt of completed applications is midday 31 October 2008.

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.

What future for the Compact?
The future of the Compact is now being discussed. Are you representing a voluntary and community organisation? Any change may affect you and your relationship with government, including key issues such as funding and consultation. Jurgen Grotz is a researcher who has been asked by Compact Voice to collect views on the issues discussed in the Compact debate. If you would like to talk to him about your views on the Compact just email your name and number to j.grotz@roehampton.co.uk or call him on 07737 223 639 and he will call you to ask what you think about the Compact and what you would want it to look like. There’s also an online consultation at where you can fill in the Compact Voice questionnaire.

Support for Young People with Chronic Health Conditions
Staying Positive Workshops are a series of three one-day workshops delivered over a period of six weeks for young people aged 12-18 who are living with a long-term health condition. The workshops give them the skills to improve the management of their condition from both a health and social perspective. They've been developed through working with teenagers on the format and content - including delivery of the sessions by young people aged between 14 and 25 who are themselves living with a long term condition. The workshops are usually held on a Saturday, Sunday or during the school holidays to prevent the loss of school time. A trained responsible adult is always on site to assist the young facilitators if any difficulties arise during the workshops. The North West Launch of Staying Postive takes place on 7th November 2008 at Urbis, Cathedral Gardens, Manchester from 1pm till 3pm including buffet lunch and will cover:

About the Staying Positive programme
How the programme helps local trusts meet obligations under Every Child Matters and the Children’s NSF
Hearing directly from young people who have experienced the programme and find out what it has meant to them
How to make it happen in your area and network over lunch

If you are interested in attending, please contact Danielle Brown on danielle.brown@eppcic.co.uk or on tel. 01225 731328. The evaluation report on the project to date is available for download below:

Consultation on new legal form for charities
The Office of the Third Sector and the Charity Commission have released a proposal for a new legal structure for charities: the Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO). There is now a consultation on the details of the new form might look like and the rules it will have to follow. The next step in developing the CIO is to consult with the charity sector and those who will do business with these new organisations. The deadline for responses is 10th December. Follow the link below for more details.

National Survey of the Third Sector
The Office of the Third Sector (in the Cabinet Office) is to ask third sector organisations to share their experiences. This will help give local government the information it needs to ensure an environment for a thriving third sector - a new national performance target on which Local Authorities will be assessed. In Manchester, MACC and others are campaigning to have this target included in the Local Area Agreement as a commitment by the Manchester Partnership. In order to put together a picture of the starting position nationally (i.e. "baseline data"), from 22 September, 104000 charities, voluntary groups and social enterprises will receive the National Survey of Third Sector Organisations (NSTSO) questionnaire from Ipsos MORI. This will be the biggest ever survey of the sector and will ask about local and national funding relationships, advice and support services and the state of relations with local government. MACC has receieved notification that we will be included in the survey - so if you want to send us your views to feed in, please do so.

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.

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.

Job vacancies at MACC
There are currently two job vacancies at MACC: for our lead worker on children and families and a new support role which will work across our voluntary and community sector networks. Further details of both posts and application packs can be found on our jobs page:

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.

Capacity Building Support to develop partnerships
Are you a voluntary and community sector organisation that works with children, young people or families? Would you like to improve your sustainability and increase your profile? Do you currently work collaboratively with other VCS organisations or would you like to develop closer working with other organisations? If you answered YES to all these questions then please read on....
MACC is offering practical, tailor-made capacity building support to voluntary and community organisations that wish to work together and develop their collaborative working. We recognise that developing partnerships and making them work effectively can be challenging and time-consuming. We have a Business Improvement Budget, with which we can buy in expertise and practical support to help you to develop your partnership ideas.
We will be offering this service for the remainder of 2008-09. Due to the limits this places on our time and resources, we will only be able to offer this service to groups who have already identified potential or existing partners that they wish to develop their relationship with. For further details contact Alison Tansey at MACC for further information (alison@macc.org.uk or call 0161 834 9823).

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

Access to healthcare for refugees and asylum seekers
The Home Office and the Department of Health are currently undertaking a review of access to NHS services by 'overseas visitors'. The review will be completed next month and will be followed by a 3 month consultation period.

The Home Office is proposing that ('Enforcing the Rules: a strategy to ensure and enforce compliance with our immigration laws', March 2007):

health professionals should carry out immigration checks on clients before providing them with health care
refused asylum seekers and undocumented migrants should be charged for Primary Care (e.g. GP services and prescriptions)
Primary Care Trusts should enter into partnerships with the Border & Immigration Agency and share information with them about 'immigration crime'

The Refugee & Migrant Forum Manchester (http://www.mrsn.org.uk) is working with a coalition of organisations led by Medact (www.medact.org) to campaign against the above proposals. Please see websites for more detailed information.

An Early Day Motion has been submitted for debate by Neil Gerrard MP - please support this campaign by writing to your local MP and asking them to support this Early Day Motion. In the event that we can attract 100 plus signatures (about a sixth of the membership of the House) by the time of the review publication in December it will be a sign to the Government and the media that there is serious concern among MPs about the impact of these proposals.

EDM 220 - ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE 13.11.2007 - Gerrard, Neil
That this House notes the commitment by the Home Office and the Department of Health to a joint review of overseas visitor access to the National Health Service, now due for publication in December 2007; recalls the findings of the Joint Committee on Human Rights' Tenth Report of Session 2006-07 that the current arrangements for overseas visitor access deny healthcare to vulnerable individuals, including asylum seekers and their children, resulting in various breaches of the European Convention on Human Rights; applauds the Trade Union Congress's NHS Together campaign to defend the achievements of the free NHS; and supports the charity coalition campaign co-ordinated by the charity Medact against any measures that would compel general practitioners, and other primary care staff, to be forced to charge refused asylum seekers or other vulnerable foreign nationals for NHS care.

You can find out who your MP is by going to www.theyworkforyou.com

A template letter has been put together but this will be more effective if you write it in your own words.

Healthcare for refugees and asylum seekers campaign letter (Word Document)

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 - final version (June 2007)
The finalised Review of the Children and Young People's Plan has now been submitted to Ofsted and GONW. Please find below the final version of the main plan and associated annexes. The next steps will be to produce a summary version, a children and young people's leaflet and posters summarising our key actions and priorities. The Plan will also be communicated to staff, schools and published on the internet and intranet.

VCS Involvment on Manchester Youth Matters Board
Download an update on Youth Matters and voluntary sector participation on Manchester's Youth Matters Board here.

BME men's mental health.
The Men's Health Forum has started a 3 year project looking into BME men's mental health. At this stage, they are looking for research/reports relating to this issue, as well as projects that have work on this. If you know of something relevant, or know someone who might, please get in touch with Matthew Maycock at The Men's Health Forum: matthew.maycock@menshealthforum.org.uk

Patient Confidentiality and Sexually Transmitted Infections and HIV
Sharing information amongst health services is a sensitive issue and the regulations about patient confidentiality around HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) have been challenged under the Human Rights Act. Because of this, the Department of Health is running a consultation: in the form of a paper which sets out a number of scenarios and asks for views about what would be an appropriate course of action. You can download the consultation document from the Department of Health website >here< - the closing date is 31st October.

Tobacco Health Warnings
The Department of Health is running a consultation about introducing picture warnings on tobacco packs. A dedicated site has been launched: http://www.packwarnings.nhs.uk/ which shows the kinds of pictures being considered and a survey of people's responses and attitudes around smoking. The closing date for submitting your views is 25 August 2006.

New parenting pages on Manchester City Council wesbite
Manchester City Council have set up new parenting pages on their website to help you make your own decisions about what’s best for you and your family. Click >here< to view the pages

Most parents in Manchester do a fantastic job, but not all parents get the support they need – and most of us need a bit of help or some fresh ideas sometimes. That’s where these pages may be able to help.

You’ll find information on ideas about what good parenting is, about what’s on in Manchester for parents, services available and parenting classes

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<

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 <

Manchester Children's Fund Wythenshawe district e-bulletins (March 06)
The Children's Fund have produced an e-bulletin which is aimed at keeping voluntary and statutory sector providers, as well as the public, up-to-date with what is happening in the Wythenshawe district and with the current changes in the way Manchester is / will be delivering its services to children, young poeple and their families. You can download the March edition > here <

Report on the Commissioning of Children's Services (May 2005)
A report has been produced which aims to address the complex topic of commissioning services for children, young people and families, with particular reference to the role of the voluntary and community sector. It looks at core principles and challenges, as well as evidence of good practice and can be downloaded > here <