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Grants Programme for Manchester’s Voluntary and Community Sector

19 Sep 2013 - 16:15 by michelle.foster

There will be a fund of £550k from the three Manchester Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) available soon to Manchester’s VCS. The main aim of the programme of work will be to reduce social isolation and loneliness for people over 50yrs old in Manchester.

The programme will also aim to build greater understanding of how the Manchester CCGs can work with VCS organisations to improve health and wellbeing outcomes for Manchester residents over the age of 50yrs.

A programme Board is being developed and the initiative will be managed and administered by Macc and the Charity Service. There will also be a decision-making Grant Panel with experts from the three Manchester CCGs, Manchester City Council, the Manchester Older People’s Network and Macc.

Macc has held two briefing sessions for the VCS and has circulated information about the Grants through our data bases. No date has been arranged for the Application process to begin. We are waiting for the approval of the Programme Board.

Applications will be for projects (up to 18months) and/or equipment which can improve the health and wellbeing of older people in Manchester, by reducing social isolation and loneliness.

Your organisation or group may want to expand the support you already provide or extend your reach to include older people.

You may wish to establish new models and approaches to reduce social isolation and loneliness or expand the remit of your existing services. ‘Services designed to reduce loneliness are normally aimed at people with relatively few health or social care needs.

They are intended to reverse the negative impact on health that social isolation can have, prolong people’s independence and improve overall quality of life.’ (scie May 2012)

There will be two levels of grants with separate application processes:
Small grants of £500-£10,000
Main Grants of £10,000-£50,000

Grants can be for capital and/or revenue. Main grants must be predominantly revenue. All grants must be spent within 18 months from the starting date.

The key messages from groups that came out of the Macc Briefing sessions were:
• The importance of creating or building on existing partnership arrangements to ensure that developed services can be sustained beyond the end date of this programme of work
• Older people themselves should be involved in planning the services/activities to ensure success
• The VCS builds on evidence of what works (including the lessons from POPPs) Services designed to improve wellbeing sit within the ‘preventative agenda’ and should be part of a continuum of support provide by the NHS and Adult Social Care
• The grants will be available to VCS organisations, Housing Associations and Social Enterprises that can demonstrate all the criteria approved by the Board

The groups welcomed the initiative from the CCGs and the proposal to set aside 50k from the original sum of 600k, for an evaluation of the Programme.

It is proposed that the evaluators will work with each project to assist them in devising, preparing and producing monitoring information and help them to gather evidence to improve services and improve funding opportunities for their organisation/partnership.

As soon as the Programme Board approves the Project Plan and application process, we will let everyone know!

For further information, contact Beth Plant or Mary Duncan on 0161 834 9823, or email: [email protected] or [email protected]
 

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