UK: VCSE Health and Wellbeing Fund 2022

Deadline: 5-Aug-22

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), and NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSEI), the system partners, are seeking applications from Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector organisations for the next round of the Health and Wellbeing Fund.

The aim of the fund is to promote equalities and reduce health inequalities by building the evidence base about good practice, sharing lessons, and widening the adoption of interventions with a proven track record.

The programme enables the system partners to work together with the VCSE sector to promote equality, improve health inequalities and to help families and communities to achieve and maintain wellbeing.

Funding Information

• Grants between £200,000 to £600,000 per applicant will be available to expand or develop schemes,
• Up to a maximum of £200,000 per financial year.
• It is anticipated that the will fund approximately 15 to 20 projects and programmes.
• The fund will grant fund projects over a period of 3 financial years, until March 2025.

Types of support

The Health and Wellbeing Fund will support projects and programmes that are working with target communities and provide:

• Workplace awareness and training for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) where assistance schemes are unlikely to be available.
• Low-intensity expert work and health support for women experiencing reproductive health issues that are impacting their experience in the workplace. In particular, those women at risk of leaving employment or who have recently fallen out of work who are less likely to have access to occupational health support via their employer, for example, those working for small employers or the self-employed. Services can take a variety of forms, but typical features can include:
  • ‘Upstream’ support for people to remain in work or return to work, including following a sickness absence
  • Light-touch, ‘biopsychosocial’ approaches, helping individuals to address their holistic health, personal and workplace barriers to employment
  • Case management
  • Signposting to both clinical services (for example, mental health services, physiotherapy) and wider, local, services (for example, debt advice, CV and interview coaching, wellbeing support)
  • Delivery by multidisciplinary teams, involving clinical or non-clinical professionals (including in case manager roles)

Target Communities: The target community for the fund is women of working age experiencing reproductive health issues.

Eligibility Criteria

• Organisations must:
  • Meet the conditions set out in Section 70 of the Charities Act 2006 to be eligible to receive a grant for the Health and Wellbeing Fund, and subject to completion of due diligence processes. A summary of the legal criteria in Section 70 is set out in Annex 2
  • Work in England, with a plan to operate their project or programme in England only. There are separate arrangements for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
  • Be not for profit, and either:
  • Incorporated (this would be a company limited by guarantee and registered with Companies House OR a community interest company OR a co-operative or industrial and provident society OR a social enterprise); or
  • Have charitable status (registered with the Charity Commission)
  • Not apply for grant funding amount of more than 25% of their current annual turnover, as demonstrated by their audited or independently examined accounts
  • Have an equal opportunities, health and safety and safeguarding policy
  • Have been operating in this area, or a closely related area, for at least the last 3 years
  • Demonstrate that they have a clear connection to work within local communities (either as a local or national VCSE organisation)

For more information, visit https://bit.ly/3G0HNfj