Choices – Programme Specification
The Home Office is inviting applications for grant funding from Voluntary and
Community Organisations for a new grant programme - Choices - focused on
tackling and preventing young people’s substance misuse and related offending.
To assist organisations in writing their grant applications, the purpose, focus and
intended outcomes of the programme are set out in the specification below. Please
take the time to read through the programme specification.
Programme specification
Purpose of the programme
As part of the preparations for the establishment of Police and Crime
Commissioners, Home Office Ministers have agreed to fund, initially in 2011-12, a
new £4 million programme to prevent substance misuse and related offending
amongst young people aged 10 to 19 years.
The purpose of the programme is to target vulnerable groups of young people who
are most likely to be at risk of, or already starting to become involved in, substance
misuse or related offending. This would include those at risk groups who show early
behavioural problems/disengagement from school, poor family functioning, early
substance use and family members/peers involved in problem behaviours. The
programme will develop more innovative approaches to the way prevention and early
interventions are targeted and delivered locally by, or with the involvement of
Voluntary and Community organisations.
The programme, and learning generated from it, will add to the evidence available to
providers in local areas to demonstrate to commissioners in the future, the benefits
of locally developed, innovative approaches in working to reduce substance misuse
and related offending by young people.
Focus of Programme
The programme is focused on the following core elements that we expect all
grant application proposals to address:
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Substance misuse and related offending by young people (10 to 19 year
olds).
Targeted prevention and early intervention for those groups of young people
who are most vulnerable to become involved in substance misuse and related
offending.
Increasing the evidence base on practice around locally developed
approaches involving Voluntary and Community organisations.
Using proven approaches in relation to targeted prevention and early
interventions and applying these to new settings or new target groups.
Placing an emphasis on the added value of Voluntary and Community
organisations and statutory sector partnership arrangements.
Testing out innovative ways of joint working between local Voluntary and
Community organisations and the statutory sector.
Outcomes
The programme is focused on a small number of high level outcomes. These are:
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Reduce substance misuse
Reduce crime and re-offending
Effective innovative, practice – genuine partnership approaches – Voluntary
and Community organisations and statutory sector
Add value to – not duplicating – other approaches that comprise local
Integrated Offender Management arrangements
Provide an evidence base of locally developed approaches for Police and
Crime Commissioners
Share appropriate and effective approaches with local partners
Format of Bids
As this grant is focused on developing effective local approaches and increasing the
capabilities and capacity of local Voluntary and Community organisations to deliver
targeted prevention and early intervention then the Home Office wants to receive
grant applications which will achieve this.
We would expect grant applications to involve a partnership between national and
local Voluntary and Community organisations and this could be done in a number of
ways. For example:
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Bids from alliances of national and local Voluntary and Community
organisations.
National Voluntary and Community organisations bidding for a “block” grant to
spend with local organisations.
Build on the evidence base of proven approaches to tackle this, and
knowledge of other successful/promising approaches.
Develop capacity and capability at a local level, for example skills transfer.
Develop innovative ways of joint working between national, local Voluntary
and Community organisations and the statutory sector.
Voluntary and Community organisations providing effective self assessment
of delivery and outcomes.
Additional background
A workshop with a range of local and national Voluntary and Community
organisations was held on the 9 May 2011 to help the Home Office with the
development and design of the programme. The report of the workshop is attached
in Annex B.
The key areas identified for inclusion in the programme are set out below. We would
also expect grant applications to cover these specific areas:
Key areas for inclusion
Key areas
Interventions
Partnership
Young people and service
user participation
Sustainability
Changing lives
Early intervention (timing)
Needs led
Sharing what works
Community approach
Description
Interventions which are needs led and focused on
young people locally identified.
Effective partnerships and communications with the
Voluntary and Community and statutory sector.
Young people involved throughout the process in the
development and implementation of the project.
Clear sustainability plans, particularly on how to
achieve self sustainability or sustainability within the
community
Evaluation and assessment of young people.
Evidence based practice. Consistent outcomes and to
make a real difference.
Balance between prevention and treatment prevent
those most vulnerable to offending behaviour and
substance misuse
Define geography, population and problem, a blend
national and local
Sharing best practice and approaches, assessment and
review, evaluation
Whole community approach
Evaluation
The Home Office wants to ensure that it is receiving value for money in return
for the grant. Grant recipients will be expected to provide an assessment at the end
of the funding period on how the programme met its aims and objectives and what
can be learnt from the project and how it provided value for money.
It is expected that a final report will cover such things as:
 Why and how the problem to be addressed was identified;
 How the plan was implemented;
 Qualitative and quantitative data (if possible) pre and post intervention
and consideration of using a ‘control group’ and follow up of
participants post intervention;
 An assessment of whether the broad goals and specific objectives
were obtained; and
 Learning points from the project
The grant recipients would also be expected to provide evidence on the value for
money of their approach looking at such things as:
How much additional resource it levered in;
 The value of the benefits brought about through the project;
 An assessment of how the benefits relate to the total costs;
Home Office analysts can offer limited support for evaluation to successful
bidders.
Assessment of Applications
A panel with representatives drawn from various Government departments (including
from the Home Office, Department for Education and the National Treatment Agency
for Substance Misuse) will assess the applications. We will also be inviting young
people and a Voluntary and Community organisation that has not submitted an
application to participate in the assessment process.
Panel members will score applications on the evidence submitted based on five
bands that broadly follow a consistent pattern of:
 Little or no evidence
 Some limited evidence with significant gaps or concerns
 Reasonable evidence
 Clear/good evidence
 Outstanding, innovative, best practice, exemplary.
A template for the application form is attached at Annex A.
Organisations need to submit an electronic copy of the application form by Thursday
18th August to [email protected].
We will also accept hard copies of application forms and these should be sent to
Andrew Sadler, Reducing Reoffending Unit, 4th Floor, Fry Building, NE Quarter, 2
Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF.
If you have any queries over the application process or form then please contact
either Andrew Sadler by phone on 020 7035 3051 or Simon Eglington on 020
7035 0578.
Annex A
Choices
Grant Application Form
Annex A – Choices programme application form
When completing the application brevity is encouraged please try to limit details in
each question to 150 words.
Choices
Applicant information
Organisation(s)
Contact name
Position or job
title
Address for
correspondence
Email:
Tel:
Bid amount £
Type of organisation (please confirm the type of organisation and provide registration
number) Please note that this grant is not available to statutory organisations, a
commercial or profit making organisation or an individual.
Registered charity
Not-for-profit company
Social enterprise
Other
Financial controls – please set out the specific financial controls that your
organisation has in place?
Safeguarding policy – Please confirm that your organisation has appropriate
policies/processes for safeguarding children and young people. Please provide
details of safeguarding procedures.
Please also confirm that you would ensure that all local Voluntary and Community
organisations that you would work with had appropriate safeguarding policies and
processes in place. Please provide details of safeguarding procedures.
Part 1
Programme specific – aims
1. What are the overall aims and objectives of your proposal?
2. Please provide an overview of your proposal.
3. What issues are you addressing?
4. What groups of vulnerable and at risk young people do you propose to work with?
5. What geographical areas are you proposing to work in?
6. How were these issues, groups of young people and areas identified?
Please reference any data or evidence you used to make this decision.
Part 2
Programme specific - what will the project do
7. What are the key activities of your proposal?
8. Why was this approach taken?
9. Does this build on proven approaches? If so please provide examples.
10. Does this proposal also bring an element of innovation? How does this do this?
11. Why is your proposal different from services that are already provided? How does
this proposal complement and fill a gap in provision in local areas?
Part 3
Organisations involved in the project
12. What local Voluntary and Community organisations will you be working with?
Please ensure that you list all local organisations you will be working with.
13. Have you previously worked with these organisations?
14. Explain how you will work with these local Voluntary and Community
organisations.
15. Will you working with other agencies/statutory bodies? If so, which ones?
16. How will you ensure that local Voluntary and Community organisations are able
to develop effective local partnerships including with Community Safety Partnerships
and other statutory partners such as Local Authorities and the police?
17. Have you or are you going to consult with the local young people’s substance
misuse partnerships on your proposals?
18. How does the proposal address key areas identified from the workshop?
Part 4
Evaluation of the project
19. How will you evaluate the project?
20. What outcomes will you be measuring?
21. How will you measure the baseline and the outcomes?
22. How will you demonstrate value for money?
23. Does the proposal include funding for evaluation? If so how much?
24. Breakdown of funding. How much funding are you applying for? Please provide
a breakdown of costs.
25. What skills and expertise will be transferred to local Voluntary and Community
organisations? How do you propose to achieve this?
26. What plans do you have to ensure that the learning, skills, and good practice are
retained at a local level?
27. Any other additional information or evidence to support your proposal.
Please submit your completed application form electronically by Thursday 18 th
August to [email protected].
Hard copies of application forms will also be accepted and these should be sent to
Andrew Sadler, Reducing Reoffending Unit, 4th Floor, Fry Building, NE Quarter,
2 Marsham Street, London SW1P 4DF.
If you have any queries over the application process or form then please contact
either Andrew Sadler by phone on 020 7035 3051 or Simon Eglington on 020
7035 0578.
Annex B
VCSE Young People Substance Misuse and Offending Programme
REPORT OF WORKSHOP ON 9th MAY 2011
Youth Justice Board,
1 Drummond Gate, London, SW1V 2QZ
Background
As part of the preparations for the establishment of Police and Crime
Commissioners, Home Office Ministers have agreed to fund, initially in 2011-12, a
new £4 million programme to address substance misuse and related offending
amongst young people aged 10 to 19 years. The intention is that this programme,
and learning generated from it, will add to the evidence available to providers in local
areas to demonstrate to commissioners in the future, the benefits of locally
developed, innovative approaches in working to reduce substance misuse and
related offending by young people.
The overall objective of the workshop was to use Voluntary, Community and Social
Enterprises (VCSE) organisations knowledge and expertise to help develop and codesign the programme. The programme needs to be locally managed and delivered,
making use of innovative approaches that build upon what we, collectively, currently
know about effective practice in this area.
Opening presentations:
Sally Richards, Head of the Reducing Reoffending Unit,
Sally spoke about the need to find innovative ways of working with VCSE
organisations to help deliver programmes locally to address substance misuse and
related offending by young people.
Bernard Lane, Reducing Reoffending Unit
Bernard defined the vision for the programme by setting out the background, current
progress and the ambitions for the programme. Three main strategy documents
have been published that set out the Governments policy relating to young people’s
substance misuse and related offending.
“Drug-related and alcohol-related crime remains a serious problem …… The UK has
amongst the young people’s cannabis use and binge drinking in Europe.”
A New Approach To fighting Crime – Home Office – March 2011
“If we do not prevent and tackle offending by young people then the young offenders
of today will become the prolific career criminals of tomorrow.”
“74% of offenders sentenced to youth custody and 68% of young people on
community sentences reoffend within a year.”
Breaking The Cycle Green Paper – Ministry of Justice – December 2010
“Some young people face increased risks of developing problems with drugs or
alcohol. Vulnerable groups … - need targeted support to prevent drug or alcohol
misuse or early intervention when problems first arise.
Developing responses to these needs is best done at the local level, supported by
consistent national evidence and advice on effective approaches.”
Drug Strategy 2010 – HM Government – December 2010
The purpose of the workshop was to use VCSE knowledge and expertise to design
the programme that needed to:
-
Focus on addressing substance misuse and related offending by young
people (10 to 19 year olds)
Increase the evidence base on effective practice
Have an emphasis on the added value of VCSE and statutory sector
partnership arrangements.
Test out innovative ways of joint working.
The outcomes of the programme will look at:
-
Less substance misuse
Less crime and re-offending
Effective innovative, practice – genuine partnership approaches – VCSE and
statutory sector
Adding value to – not duplicating – other approaches that comprise local
integrated Offender Management
Pave the way for Police and Crime Commissioners
Bernard stressed the fact that nothing was set in stone and we needed the support
and assistance of the VCSE in the design of the programme. He highlighted some
of the initially thinking that had been done by the Home Office in consultation with
other departments and agencies. Ideas included:
-
Bids from alliance of VCSE organisations
National VCSE organisations bidding for a “block” grant to spend with local
organisations
Building on previous experience, and knowledge of other
successful/promising approaches
Developing capacity and capability at a local level – e.g. skills transfer
Developing innovative practice
Session one:
The session started with a temperature check with the full group being asked: How
innovative do you think you can be currently when involved in delivering
services for young people?
The majority of the group felt that all the ideas were there (as best as we can) and
that working with young people themselves supplied a lot of creativity and
innovation.
A number of attendees thought that clarity and simplicity was needed from the centre
which would allow VCSE organisations to be innovative e.g. too much bureaucracy
in evaluation of programmes. A number of attendees also felt that bureaucracy from
the centre was also a constraint with some delivery seen as out of scope.
A few attendees thought that innovation did not mean the creation of brand new
ideas. As with the previous responses all the ideas were already there.
Session two:
The following question was posed to the group:
We are asking you to help design a new kind of framework what are the key
areas to include?
Each table was asked to write down as many key areas as they could think of and
from these they had to pick their top three areas for discussion.
The group as a whole then clustered the key areas into groups of similar themes and
provided suitable headings. Each attendee was then provided with four votes to
choose the four key areas that they wanted to discuss further in syndicate groups.
These were:
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Interventions
Partnership
Young people and service user participation
Sustainability
A full list of all ideas clustered into headings is set out at Annex A with the result of
the votes. The annex also includes ideas from tables that were not included in the
top three they nominated.
Session three:
The group was asked to split into four groups to discuss the four key areas and to
identify ideas, barriers to the ideas and to come up with possible recommendations.
The recommendations to come out of the discussions were as follows:
How do you address intervention?
- More diversionary interventions/positive activities to be encouraged*
- Decision on which intervention to use is needs led and not because it is the
only one available*
- Universal Screening Tool? Is it possible? How? Look to the centre for this?
- Through care and wrap around interventions (don’t focus on the problem but a
sustainable solution)*
- Working in partnership to deliver intervention – shares resources, skills and
money e.g. in case of dual diagnosis*
-
Range of clearly defined interventions balance between prevention and
treatment
How do you address partnerships?
- Physical or virtual team co-location*
- Shared responsibilities and facilities as a result*
- Targeted Practitioner Partnerships – at strategic level with cross roles – not
working in silos*
- Multi-Agency Commissioning – making pooled budgets work*
- Early information sharing*
- Cross Government Steering Group, oversee grant delivery as a problem
solving mechanism (DH, NHS, HO, CLG, MOJ, YJB and DWP)
How do you address young people participation?
- Social networking etc. don’t be afraid it’s were all the young people are!!*
- Involve young people properly in development, challenge and debate with
young people. Target the correct audience
- Adult services “Jargon” not to infect young peoples services, provision and
agendas e.g. “Recovery”, TOP forms *
How do you address sustainability?
- Clear sustainability action plan – specifics
- Sustainability in the community – how is this achieved
- Remove/combine/don’t fund duplicating organisations*
- Sustainability is not about keeping the scaffolding up but about removing the
scaffolding*
- Business alliances (where business commits) – sharing expertise in support
of sustainability (Government initiative)
- Realistic expectations about what is achievable
- Self sustainability seed funding from Government with private/matched
funding increasing over time to raise capacity whilst Government funding
tapers out (change in funding periods i.e. longer term programmes)*
- Prove you meet the outcomes – continued payment*
- Break the boom and bust of grant giving*
A full list of all ideas and barriers discussed in groups are listed in Annex B
NB: * = idea/recommendation which peers thought were good.
Closing presentation:
James Brokenshire, Parliamentary under Secretary of State for Crime
Prevention
The Minister addressed the group reinforcing the vision for the programme stating
that more needs to be done in relation to prevention and early intervention around
substance misuse and encouraging locally owned and driven innovative approaches.
This is particularly important to maximise the crime reduction impact.
The Programme provides an opportunity to develop fresh local approaches and
VCSE organisations would add value to current programmes in tackling the
problems of substance misuse and related offending by young people.
With the transition to Police and Crime Commissioners the ability to demonstrate to
local commissioners and funders the impact and benefits of addressing young
people’s substance misuse and related offending will be critical. The programme
would help aid this transition and allow VCSE organisations to demonstrate the
benefits and impact of local approaches and make the case for funding from local
commissioners.
Next Steps
Bernard closed the workshop and set out the next steps. These were:
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To produce a write up of the workshop and to circulate this to attendees by
the end of the week.
To ask attendees to come back to the team at the Home Office with any
further ideas and recommendations on the programme.
To continue to use the Group in the ongoing development and design of the
programme.
To use the material from the workshop to inform the design of the programme
In terms of the timetable for getting the funding out to VCSE organisations then the
Home Office was looking to do this by the Summer.
Annex A:
Interventions (20 votes)*
- Resources - including detox, transitional outreach
- Balance return, Prevention treatment, resources
Partnership (16 votes)*
- Effective partnership and communications
- Integrated and joint working e.g. dual diagnosis
- Partnership approach
- Multi-agency and holistic – Housing, education, YOT, Health
- Holistically working with the young people – education, health, safety
Young people and service user participation (14 votes)*
- Young people involved throughout the process (not tokenistic)
- Holistically working with young people
- Effective partnership and communications
Sustainability (12 votes)*
Changing lives (10 votes)
- Evaluation and assessment of young people – support in place for smaller
organisations
- Best practice – commissioning, delivery, evidence based practice, consistent
outcomes and measures
- What is the evidence base for your action?
- Identifying promising practice, evidence based
- Agree the outcomes and the baseline that will allow good evaluation
Early intervention (timing) (9 votes)
- Early intervention and action
- Prevention – relevant to age/experience, schools and further education,
parents and families
- Balance between prevention and treatment
Needs led (9 votes)
- Define your geography, population and problem (what do you want to
change?)
- Blend national and local
- Uniform consistent service but tweaked locally
Sharing what works (7 votes)
- Best practice
- Complete and accurate assessments and reviewing
- Evaluation and assessment of young people, support small local
organisations
Community approach (6 votes)
- Whole community approach
Other ideas suggestions
Involvement of health services, CAMHS, drugs services
Based on evidenced need – simple versions for smaller organisations
Involvement and education of families
Evaluation – measured/follow up
Appropriate age and family setting – hours of work
Resources targeted where needed most
Statutory framework
Involving young people in the design of services
Evaluation
Embraces technology – viral
Agree outputs
Baseline data – evaluate
Exit plan
What resources are needed?
Who are your collaborators?
Continued support – outreach
Communication working together with other agencies
Dual diagnosis
Freedom and flexibility for services to meet individual and local need not just
national criteria
Joint framework
Challenging stereotypes
Plugged into health transition arrangements
NB: * = key areas voted for further discussion
Annex B:
Interventions
Ideas
-
Range: universal to specialist
Time range: brief to longer term
Timing of intervention: Early and at crisis point
Type of intervention available: individual/family/environment
Young person involvement – choice, young person friendly, needs led
Interventions that wrap around a young person, early, mid and exit
intervention
“Through care” and after care
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, MI [DN: Can syndicate group clarify this?],
Solution Focused
Mentoring and diversionary interventions
Dual diagnosis intervention
Good assessment
Barriers
- Consistency
- Fidelity
- Receptive environment
- Money
- Awareness especially for earlier interventions
- Knowledge and skill base
- Criteria and threshold
- Young person – resistance, willingness, capacity
- Crisis management
Recommendations
- More diversionary interventions/positive activities to be encouraged*
- Decision on which intervention to use is needs led and not because it is the
only one available*
- Universal Screening Tool? Is it possible? How? Look to the centre for this?
- Through care and wrap around interventions (don’t focus on the problem but a
sustainable solution)*
- Working in partnership to deliver intervention – shares resources, skills and
money e.g. in case of dual diagnosis*
- Range of clearly defined interventions balance between prevention and
treatment
Partnership
Ideas
-
How do we form them?
Formal or informal?
Information sharing (protocol)
Co-location
Shared objectives
-
Stringent accountability
Linked to funding
Barriers
- Competition
- Geography
- Commissioning
- Weakening team
- Around the child objective
Recommendations
- Physical or virtual team co-location*
- Shared responsibilities and facilities as a result*
- Targeted Practitioner Partnerships – at strategic level with cross roles – not
working in silos*
- Multi-Agency Commissioning – making pooled budgets work*
- Early information sharing*
- Cross Government Steering Group, oversee grant delivery as a problem
solving mechanism (DH, NHS, HO, CLG, MOJ, YJB and DWP)
Young people participation
Ideas
-
Social networking
Young volunteers
Peer mentoring
Young people “recovery” networks
Structure and resourcing
Rewards and incentives
Young peoples committee’s
Upward voice from young people
Creditable local service leaders
Barriers
- Confidentiality
- Gangs/Groups
- Safeguarding
- Stability
- Age appropriate
- Substance appropriate
Recommendations
- Social networking etc. don’t be afraid it’s were all the young people are!!*
- Involve young people properly in development, challenges and debate with
young people. Target the correct audience
- Adult services “Jargon” not to infect young peoples services, provisions and
agendas e.g. “Recovery”, TOP forms *
Sustainability
Ideas
-
Individual sustainability
Community capacity
Organisation sustainability
Building skills of volunteers and people who will be there long term
Clear outcomes identified
Barriers
- Too many organisations doing the same thing
- Timescales
- Seed funding from Government with private/matching funding increasing over
time to raise capacity whilst Government funding tapers out
Recommendations
- Clear sustainability action plan – specifics
- Sustainability in the community – how is this achieved
- Remove/combine/don’t fund duplicating organisations*
- Sustainability is not about keeping the scaffolding up but about removing the
scaffolding*
- Business alliances(where business commits) – sharing expertise in support of
sustainability (build on Government initiative)
- Realistic expectations about what is achievable
- Self sustainability seed funding from Government with private/matched
funding increasing over time to raise capacity whilst Government funding
tapers out (change in funding periods i.e. longer term programmes)*
- Prove you meet the outcomes – continued payment*
- Break the boom and bust of grant giving*
NB: * = idea/recommendation which peers thought was good.