Family Support and Host Volunteers

The commissioned service will provide a whole family, targeted, early intervention support service to families and care leavers on a city-wide basis.

The service will comprise of two support elements

• whole family support including hosting
• care-leaver support

Whole family support

The commissioned service will support parents and families by giving them the time and encouragement to address needs which may lead to further issues such as, but not limited to, neglect, poor mental or physical illness, addiction, homelessness, serious financial difficulties or relationship breakdown.

The commissioned service will work with families with multiple needs for a minimum of six months and up to 12 months. These families will be identified by Birmingham Children’s Trust who will connect them with volunteers who will provide support and build positive relationships leading to improved outcomes for vulnerable children and families.

The commissioned service will work with families who have complex / significant needs as specified in Birmingham’s Right Help, Right Time (RHRT) model of delivering effective support for children and families in Birmingham.

The hosting element of this service will allow short hosting stays for parents and their children. This may be regular planned stays provided as part of a package of support or may be emergency hosting for an unanticipated family crisis. Families receiving a hosting service will have access to the service for up to a period of 28 days per annum.

The aims of the hosting will be made clear at the point of referral together with the parent and referrer, with an estimated duration of the stay.

The hosting service will be for parent and children joint stays. An exception may be considered for a stay for a sole child/ren but will require an approved risk assessment.

The broad aims of the hosting will focus on one or more of the following:

• Building parenting capacity within the family unit to support them to live safe and healthy lives
• Providing practical support, advice and guidance, nurturing the parent into their parenting role
• Building self-confidence and resilience in mother’s parenting role
• Support to the parent in settling their child(ren) into positive routines
• Modelling and advising on positive parenting strategies
• Feeding in to parenting assessments but not undertaking parenting assessments

The commissioned service will supply bespoke packages of support, delivered through a network of volunteers providing support to families in crisis or in need, that helps build protective factors and family resilience. Additionally, there will be provision of a Therapeutic Parenting coach who will support families where this is identified as a need.

Care leaver support

The commissioned service will provide full volunteer support to care leavers and there is an expectation that the volunteer relationship will form part of the long-term support structure around the care leaver.

The definition of a care leaver is: a person who has been in the care of a local authority for at least 13 weeks since the age of 14 and was in care on or after their 16th birthday. This care can include foster care, residential care, or other arrangements. They are entitled to ongoing help and support from their local authority after leaving care.

The key aims of the commissioned service are:

• to help in avoiding admission into local authority care for young people
• to reduce isolation for families and young people
• to broaden support networks for families and care-leavers
• to change the intervention level of BCT
• to reduce the likelihood of re-referral into BCT
• to improve the mental health of care-leavers
• to increase the uptake of education, employment and training of care-leavers
• to decrease criminal activity of care-leavers

The duration of the contract will be three years, with the option to extend for up to two years (3 + 1 + 1), commencing on 1st April 2026.

The contract value for the year is £198,000.

The contract will be reviewed on an annual basis with a break clause after March 2027, and each subsequent year; with the continuation of the contract based on funding availability and performance.

The Trust will be using its free to use e-tendering system (in-tend) for the administration of this procurement process and potential suppliers must register with the system to be able to express an interest. If you wish to express an interest in this opportunity, please click on the following link to access in-tendhost.co.uk/birminghamcc/ ↗ and submit your details to register. You will then be able to log on which will enable you to download all relevant quotation documentation.

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Your completed tender submission should be returned by noon on 9th January 2026 via the ‘in-tend’ system in-tendhost.co.uk/birminghamcc ↗