We have just received notification that the joint TSI bid led by CTSI and in conjunction with Stirlingshire Voluntary Enterprise (SVE) and CVS Falkirk & District and the three associated Councils, to the Scottish Government’s Third Sector Delivery Fund has been unsuccessful.
We are very disappointed as this was a bid to roll out the successful and well-evidenced model, the Family Support Collaborative developed in Clackmannanshire including Family Support Hubs into the other two Forth Valley council areas, and would have been a combined investment into the local third sector of around £1.9 million into local third sector and family support posts.
The bid offered signposting and early intervention support to families to reduce crisis escalation and to help reduce the number of families on the edge of care. In addition, the bid particularly focused on longer-term outcomes to alleviate child poverty which we believe are critical now including keeping parents’ employment skills up to date while they look after children, ensuring their mental health is supported and those of their family members, and addressing return-to-work financial issues like child maintenance and other barriers. Each council area would also have had a fund for families themselves to decide on how to use to suit their local needs, which would have supported smaller grassroots organisations and activities especially in rural areas.
We want to ensure our members that we do try to attract in larger-scale funding when there is an opportunity, and this bid which had a very short turn-around time did take a lot of TSI time and resource to coordinate. We wanted to make a significant difference to the lives of local families across Forth Valley and cascade and build learning and shared values, using high-quality third sector member organisations. We want you to be assured, despite being unsuccessful, we remain committed to entering into multi-area funding bids like this in the future, for the benefit of our families, communities and our highly-valued third sector membership.
