Early Help Family Support Service - Market Engagement

Early Help Family Support Service

NTRODUCTION

Salford City Council currently commissions an early help family support service designed to:

• Increase resilience and enable families to better meet their own needs with less reliance on local authority services, including programme exit-planning which links families to resources in their local community to provide longer term support • To empower parents and guardians to help their children to develop well and achieve success • To provide support and respite for parents or guardians

The annual budget for this service is likely to £65,600. If, after considering the minimum output and outcome requirements of the service described below, you believe that your organisation could deliver this service in Salford and within the available budget, please complete the questionnaire at the end of this document and return it by 17.00hrs 15th October 2025, via The Chest. There will be an opportunity to attend a remote meeting with Salford's commissioning and procurement teams on 6th October at 1-2 pm to discuss any further queries you may have about the requirements of this market engagement process, please contact [email protected] to request attendance.

Service overview The service works in collaboration with Early Help and Children's Social Care teams to support families in four main areas:- Befriending - emotional and practical support to families with at least one child (from ages 0 to 19) from trained and supervised staff and volunteers, in person and by phone / online. Please note that this support will need to be available on evenings and weekends and not just during standard office hours. Provide overnight hosting stays and daytime breaks for children away from their family (helping to deal with short term crises, or maybe where a parent/guardian needs a break) Practical family resources help with sourcing charitable donations of goods / services and funds to help with critical expenses. Development of the family's connection to and involvement with social and community networks to broaden their support base and improve their resilience as part of a family's post-programme support.

The service will mainly work alongside the Council's Early Help service when universal services are not meeting family need in a multi-agency 'team around the family' approach to provide support to families in line with our 'Thrive Model who are largely at the Getting Help / Targeted Early Help level of need. However the service will be expected to increasingly work with more families at the Getting More Help / Child In Need level and occasionally at Getting Risk Support / Child Protection level. See Salford's early-help-strategy-2023-26.pdf for further information.