Highland Whole Family Wellbeing Programme

The Highland Whole Family Wellbeing Programme (WFWP) is a change and innovation programme driven by several wide-ranging national policies and strategies, which aims to tackle inequalities and improve the wellbeing and support available to families.

Through the Highland Integrated Children’s Services Plan the Partnership has a vision to support children and young people to have the best possible start in life, enjoy being young, ensuring they are loved, confident and resilient and can achieve their full potential.

The Highland Whole Family Wellbeing Programme supports activity across the nine Community Partnership localities in line with the Programme Four Pillars and the Principles of Holistic Whole Family Support.

Whole Family Wellbeing Site

Toolkit Information

Highland, with all other regions of Scotland, are required to ensure the programme aligns to the 4 Pillars and 10 principles of holistic family support. This toolkit helps us as a community of practice to ensure that when we allocate funds, we are laser focussed on the pillars and principles for the benefit of children, young people and families across Highland.

On the 19 June 2024, the multi-agency Integrated Children’s Services Board approved the Highland Whole Family Wellbeing Programme funding strategy, which enable the launch of the Self-Assessment Toolkit and the Application Process for the Element 1 of the fund, which will open 2 September 2024.

The toolkit can be accessed here:

Toolkit Link

The guidance document for the Self-Assessment Toolkit and Application Form will also be available on the HCPP WFWP page here.

The Self-Assessment Toolkit is a mandatory element for applications to the Highland Whole Family Wellbeing Programme Fund.

Toolkit Guidance Workshops

A series of information and support workshops were arranged in partnership with colleagues at HTSI where we invited you to learn more about the Self-Assessment Toolkit as well as the application process and criteria for the Whole Family Wellbeing Programme Fund - Element 1 – Locality Community Based Activity Small Grant Fund 2024/2025.

Self-Assessment Toolkit and Application Process Guidance Workshops were hosted by Highland Whole Family Wellbeing Programme and Marion MacNeil (HTSI).

If you were unable to attend the sessions you can view a recording of the presentation here.

Drop in Support Sessions

Following the workshops, Highland Whole Family Wellbeing Programme Team members are hosting an additional three on-line drop-in support sessions to help answer questions about the Self-Assessment Toolkit and Application Process. If you have any questions, please email highlandwholefamilywellbeing@highland.gov.uk.

Evening Drop in Support Session
Wednesday 25th September 5pm – 6pm
Register here

The Self-Assessment Toolkit, is based on quality indicators relating to the Pillars and Principles of holistic whole family support and is designed to:

Support development of a shared language and understanding of holistic whole family support across Highland (and Scotland) ensuring families receive consistency and clarity from everyone in a supporting role.
Provide an evaluative baseline assessment for any organisation providing services in and for Highland families and communities. The use of the quality indicator statements will enable services/organisations to benchmark current practice and establish a way to measure progress. Answering these challenge questions will help partners identify strengths within and across service delivery and begin to consider areas which need to improve or further develop.
Provide organisations and local partnerships with data evidence, supporting ongoing reflection and service improvement alongside all stakeholders. This data can inform community planning in local areas as well as give leaders evidence-based feedback to inform strategic planning. The data evidence gathered will also support organisations and services who may be looking to apply for funding from a range of sources.
Identify strengths, successes for celebration and promotion, areas for development and gaps in provision. If the wheel has already been invented, lets tell others about it! Share learning, learn together.

These aspects all provide a scaffolding to support effective collaborative practice that is consistent across Highland ensuring every family gets the support they need, where they need it, when they need it, for as long as they need it. Encompassing all 4 programme pillars.

Funding Information

Whole Family Wellbeing Programme Fund - Element 1: Locality Community Based Activity Small Grant Fund 2024/2025.

This fund will support local community-based activities, addressing family wellbeing activities based on locality need. In this round, prioritised to tackle Poverty based inequality, applications will be directed to include the following family types.

Family Types

Families where the mother is under 25
Lone Parent Families
Families which include children or adults with disability
Larger Families
Minority Ethnic Families
Families with a child under 1

It will be targeted at grass roots smaller third sector organisations and will encourage joined-up approaches in locality to avoid duplication and siloed working. Wherever possible it will encourage match funding opportunities.

Applications will be assessed by the Whole Family Wellbeing Programme with partners in each of the nine Community Partnership localities. Support for this Application Process has been provided to the Programme by the Highland Third Sector Interface (HTSI).

WATCH Highland Whole family Wellbeing Programme, Tech Support for Funding Application here.

You must have completed the Self-Assessment Toolkit before being able to complete the application to apply for the Highland Whole Family Wellbeing Programme Fund.

Please email Marion MacNeil (Development Officer) at funding@highlandtsi.org.uk if you want support with your application.

Deadline for Applications

The online application form will open on Monday 2 September 2024 and close on Monday 30 September 2024 for completed applications.

Late applications cannot be considered.

Application Link

You can access the Application form through this link:

Application Link

WATCH Highland Whole family Wellbeing Programme, Tech Support for Funding Application here.

Gathering evidence - how do we know?

Smaller grass roots third sector organisations, who are constituted and have access to their own bank account and can demonstrate their ability to competently deliver what they set out in their own application.

Organisations that are eligible to apply include:

▪ Charity

▪ Not for profit company

▪ Unincorporated association

▪ Trust

▪ Partnership

▪ Statutory Service

Can a Larger Third Sector Organisation Apply?

Whilst the fund is targeted at smaller grass roots third sector organisations, it would not preclude applications from larger organisations undertaking local initiatives.

This means we would not expect to see Highland-wide service delivery applications.

In some instances, a larger organisation may be the most appropriate to deliver the work but what will not be considered under Element 1 are applications working across large geographic areas or populations in one proposal.

An example of what could be funded by the Whole Family Wellbeing Programme Fund - Element 1: Locality Community Based Activity Small Grant Fund 2024/2025, includes but is not exclusive to the following example. Some different parts of the activity have been aligned to the Programme Pillars to assist you to think about your activities/applications in that context:

Activity:

Creating peer support groups for young parents, lone parents to create a safe space for them to come together to undertake various activities together, which can help them to tackle inequalities, like learning how to budget, cooking classes or skills for employability.

Pillar 1:

Consulting with parents within your community as to what activities they would like to use. How would they want the activity to be delivered to make it stigma-free. How could they be involved in the design or running of that activity?

Pillar 2:

Consulting with parents within your community who are interested in your activity to see what times and days of the week they would want the activities to take place. Is it the type of place that they would want to use?

Pillar 3:

When your activity is taking place, are there are other services that your families would like to come into the space? Could you ask the Citizens Advice Bureau to come along to provide information to them that they feel that they need and would want? Are there any other third sector organisations that could come and collaborate with you during the activity that the families would like?

Pillar 4:

When you are delivering your activity do your staff have all the skills and information that they need to support your families? Would things like - awareness of trauma, GIRFEC, where to signpost families for support - help your staff to support your families? Do your staff know enough about the Whole Family Wellbeing Programme - has your Self-Assessment Toolkit highlighted any gaps for you in this area? Where can you get support to ensure that your staff are trained and feel supported in the work that they do to support families?

Useful Documents

Download the PDF Guidance Document below:

Guidance Document Download

Download the FAQ Document below:

FAQ Download

This self-assessment toolkit, is based on quality indicators and designed to:

Support all services/organisations involved in family support and wellbeing as partners in the Highland Integrated Children’s Services Plan. Its use will provide an evaluative baseline assessment for organisations delivering such services in and for Highland communities.
Provide organisations and local partnerships with data evidence, supporting ongoing reflection and service improvement alongside all stakeholders, identifying strengths, areas for development and gaps in provision.
Support development of a shared language and understanding of holistic whole family support across Highland.
Form the basis of applications to the Highland Whole Family Wellbeing Programme Fund.
Where applicable, provide a standardised framework for the monitoring of potential contractual arrangements.

Used effectively, continuous self-assessment helps partners to monitor progress and continue to strive for excellence. Where best practice is identified, it should be celebrated, and shared with others. If aspects, impacts, and outcomes are not as good as expected, the source of the issues can be identified by ‘taking a closer look’ at a particular theme or topic. This proportionate approach allows partners to focus on priority areas rather than routinely covering all aspects of their service/organisation.

This self-assessment tool, regardless of ‘why’ it is being used, gives a set of clear quality indicators and tangible priorities for a strategic approach to holistic whole family support services improvement and development.

Data will be captured and will inform the wider programme development which might include service directory, community of practice, celebration success, sharing practice, and enable reports to the Highland Integrated Children’s Services Board, The Highland Community Planning Partnership Board, the wider partnership and The Scottish Government.

Gathering evidence - how do we know?

Conclusions should be based on a range of evidence sources and might include:

Outcome data collected nationally, locally or within a service.
Direct surveys of stakeholders’ views – direct feedback, stories of change, observation, and evaluation of practice
Photographs and other media including website and/or social media
Reviews of a range of documentation that evidences decision-making processes.

Please be sure when submitting evidence that all personal data is fully redacted and permission is sought if sharing photographs or videos.

Pillars and their Components

There are 4 sections in the self-assessment, guided by each of the 4 Pillars and their components.

You can use the Self-Assessment Toolkit and Application Guidance to assist you in the completion of the
Self-Assessment Toolkit.

Quality Indicator Statements

The quality indicator statements will help prompt/guide you in your thinking/reflection.

Fill in the in the checkbox which best represents the status of that indicator within your service/organisation. The options are as follows;

‘Not started’ - if the indicator is new to you and you have yet to think about developing this.

‘Developing’ - if work on this indicator has started e.g., Team conversations, participatory activity, partnership conversations or action plans are evolving.

‘Ready’- if this indicator is fully active and visible in your service/organisation/partnership. You are confident it can be clearly evidenced.

Evidence

This column allows you to share the evidence to substantiate the indicator status. Share a summary of the relevant/proportionate evidence and feel free to code and attach it. For example, you might say in the evidence column, ‘Document 1 - Partnership Action Tracker’ and then attach said tracker with Document 1 as the document name. Suggestions for the range of useful evidence can be found on page 7.

Free text space

After each of the 4 Pillars sections, there is a free text box. Please use this to highlight the SMART actions towards improvement and anything that might help aid progress. Also, please use this space to highlight success stories of practice and/or innovative ideas that have supported improvement.

Join HTSI

Member Login

Highland Whole Family Wellbeing Programme

Toolkit Information

Funding Information

Useful Documents