At the most recent Family Hubs workshop for the Voluntary, Community, Social Enterprise and Faith Sector (VCSEF), one matter raised was the difficulty in knowing about what support is available for families and how to connect them to it.
Wolverhampton’s Family Hubs partnership is pleased to announce that our city has been awarded funding to take part in a 6-month pilot of the DfE’s new Family Hubs Digital Service. This aims to makes it easier for families and professionals who work with them to connect to, and access vital services and support offered by VCSEF organisations, the Council, local NHS, and other providers. If the pilot is successful, this might eventually replace Wolverhampton Information Network.
The new Family Hubs Digital Service consists of:
- CONNECT – a new professional-facing digital product that will allow any professional that works with families to request support for them from the local VCFS
- FIND – a new family-facing digital product that will enable families themselves to navigate and directly connect with services in their local area
- MANAGE – a “backend” digital dashboard enabling service providers to update their service offers for families (as seen through CONNECT and FIND).
Underpinning this is a new Family Hubs database that will hold the information about Family Hubs and local services.
Click here to see a 40 minute webinar on CONNECT and MANAGE.
Expressions of Interest (EoI) are invited from VCSEF organisations in becoming:
- A Family Hubs Digital Service pilot organisation – Local VCSEF organisations are invited to offer to take part in this pilot along with up to 49 other organisations of different types and sizes. Participating organisations will need to: commit to encouraging the families they support to use the Family Hubs Digital Service; add their own services to the Family Hubs directory; and engage with the Council throughout the 6-month pilot. In return, each organisation will receive a one-off payment of £200.
- A member of the local FH Digital Service working group – there is also the option to offer to be one 3 VCSEF organisations of mixed size and type to sit on the local FH Digital Service working group. If interested in this. This will require a commitment of up to 4 hours per month (to share progress, provide feedback and inform service improvements) plus some additional time for administration and communication with the DfE project team. Each VCSEF organisation selected for this role will receive a payment of £500.
CLICK HERE to complete the simple Expression of Interest form.
The deadline for submitting your EoI is midday on 19-07-24. You will be informed of whether your EoI has been accepted by 5pm on 22-07-24.
For more information contact: familyhubprogramme@wolverhampton.gov.uk