Specification for the delivery of:
Sexual Violence and Abuse Support Services
Within the ‘Brighter Futures – Prevention and Support’ (P&S) framework
PS/2016/312 – Lot 1
Development dates – November 2016 – February 2017
Thurrock Council’s (the Council’s) priorities
Our vision is to become a place of opportunity, enterprise and excellence, where individuals, communities and businesses flourish.
Our aim is to become a confident, well managed and influential Council regarded by residents, peers and partners as ambitious for the people of Thurrock and totally focussed on meeting their current and future aspirations.
Our five priorities to help us achieve our vision are:
1. Create a great place for learning and opportunity
2. Encourage and promote job creation and economic prosperity
3. Build pride, responsibility and respect
4. Improve health and wellbeing
5. Promote and protect our clean and green environment
The future vision – the ‘Brighter Futures’ model
Services for families in need of help and support in Thurrock will be provided within an overarching service structure which will be commonly known as ‘Brighter Futures’. Within this structure there will be key strands of service delivery; primarily ‘Healthy Families’ (0-19 public health services), Children’s Centres and a newly formed team within Children’s Services that will be known as the ‘Prevention and Support Service’. This team will bring together the existing Early Offer of Help Team and the Troubled Families Team and incorporate key partners across services to support families at an earlier point through a model of direct work, supported by commissioned services.
The Brighter Futures model builds on the previous Early Offer of Help (EOH) commissioned services.
The Council is seeking to re-tender the previous EOH services following their delivery since April 2013. A detailed needs analysis has underpinned the decision to continue the delivery of three key needs groups (parenting, sexual violence and domestic abuse and violence) for a further minimum of three years, subject to continuation of funding.
Between October and December 2016 the Council consulted on proposed changes regarding closer integration of children’s centres, health services for children aged 0-19 and support for families in need of additional help. As part of this consultation we have considered suggestions by the public in respect of where the support services should be delivered from, and built this into the specification. In addition we have listened to the views of children and young people to understand the issues that they face in their lives, and considered how we can build this into service delivery to ensure that not only parents are supported, but the family as a whole.
At present, a complex range of health and wellbeing services is provided for this age group including: children’s centres, health visiting, school nursing, child weight measurement and management, breast feeding support services, smoking prevention and cessation, drug and alcohol treatment services, parenting support, speech and language therapy, as well as support for victims of domestic abuse, challenge for perpetrators of domestic abuse, and support for victims of sexual abuse and violence.
These are currently commissioned separately by the Council’s Public Health Team, Council’s Children’s Services Commissioning Team and the NHS Thurrock Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). By integrating commissioning and redesigning existing services to create a more integrated offer to families, there is a significant opportunity to make services easier to access, reduce duplication and provide a better offer to children and families. By promoting early intervention, there is also scope to reduce demand on children’s health and care services.
The model will integrate existing services and all elements of the model will work to a shared outcomes framework. Key outcomes will include but not limited to:
· Increasing the proportion of children who achieve a ‘Good Level of Development (GLD) and reducing the gap between the most and least deprived groups by supporting child development and school readiness
· Reversing the trend in rising obesity
· Increasing rates of breastfeeding
· Improving emotional health and wellbeing
· Effective safeguarding
· Increase positive parenting, parental aspiration and parenting skills
· Address generational issues by improving rates of parental employment
· Reducing smoking in pregnancy and the number of young people who start to smoke
· Reduced teenage pregnancy
· Narrowing the gap and reducing inequality between the most and least deprived groups across all indicators and contributing to narrowing the gap in adult life expectancy
· Promoting good physical and mental health for children and their families
The model will deliver an improved, integrated offer by providing joined-up services centred on the family. At present, each of these services is accessed in a different way and referral between them is not as strong as it should be. In future, different elements of the service will be connected in such a way that they will appear to be a single service from the user’s point of view. This will be achieved through:
· A single service user registration process (single point of access)
· Shared premises and co-location wherever possible to allow families to move between different services with minimal inconvenience
· Shared branding: while individual elements will retain their existing identities (e.g. Children’s Centres), an overarching brand will be developed to connect the services
· An integrated data solution will move the model beyond co-location allowing truly integrated working through sharing of data between professionals within the model to improve coordination, referral and joint working
· A lead professional for each family will coordinate support across the model, providing greater continuity through having an overview of all the different services used
Key drivers of demand on Social Care
In Thurrock the key drivers of demand on Social Care are:
· Family breakdown
· Domestic abuse and violence
· Substance misuse
· Mental Health issues
In order to reduce demand and support families at an earlier point, all services, where appropriate and relevant, are being focussed on addressing these key issues. Where relevant to this service the specification will detail the ways in which the Provider will support the objective to address these issues.
SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND ABUSE SUPPORT SERVICES
What are we trying to achieve?
We want to achieve the following high levels outcomes:
· Children are protected from harm and abuse – emotional, physical, sexual and neglect
· Children grow up in stable families with effective, nurturing and consistent parenting
· Children grow up with supportive, loving parents who can effectively implement clear structured boundaries and support their children
· Parents build positive relationships and attachment with their children
· Family breakdown is prevented
· Children develop social competence and emotional regulation with a reduction in conduct issues
· Parents understand the impact of sexual violence and abuse on children, where an adult has been the victim or where the child has been the victim
· Victims of sexual violence and abuse, and their children are safe
· Parents are able to keep children safe from harm
· Victims of sexual violence and abuse improve their understanding of relationships with abusive behaviours
· Victims avoid repeat relationships with abusive partners
· Parents are able to speak to their children about the sexual violence and abuse that they have experienced or that their child has experienced
· Parents will be enabled to speak to their children about grooming and sexual exploitation, staying safe online
· Victims build resilience and confidence
· Parents will work pro-actively with social care (where relevant), early years settings, schools and health professionals
· Victims learn to manage their own emotions
· Victims address issues in their lives, such as mental health and substance misuse (as examples) and access support where needed. Victims with mental health issues and drug and alcohol abuse are disproportionately represented in statistics for victims of sexual violence – this should be considered in service responses
· Parents will understand how sex offenders can ‘grow’ within the family
· The family are supported as ‘one’ – i.e. the Provider will assist in supporting the needs of not only the victim but that of children
· Reduction in referrals to statutory services with issues being addressed much earlier before they escalate
· Service users reporting crimes to the police and supported to, where they choose to do so
Programme delivery types
We are seeking a Provider who is specialised in the delivery of support services for victims of sexual violence and abuse including: sexual violence, child sexual abuse, rape, ‘honour based violence’, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and gang related violence. The Provider should be able to evidence their experience. The Provider will deliver in line with the following service description:
One-to-one-programme
The Provider will deliver support to a minimum of nineteen (19) service users per annum on a rolling programme. The support will not have defined timescales and will be available for as long as the service users requires the support without building dependence, and leaving the closure of case timescales for the Provider to decide, unless the Council’s children’s services department disagree with the closure timescales. Support will be tailored to the individual.
However a total of a minimum of 900 client-facing (i.e. time with the service user face-to-face) delivery hours per annum (approximately 20 hours per week) will be required under the terms of the contract.
The programme will be delivered to two groups:
1. To adult victims (both genders – see explanation below) of sexual violence and abuse who have children, and parental capacity has been impacted
2. To parents (both genders) of children and young people where the child has been the victim of sexual violence and abuse, and parental capacity has been impacted / relationships broken down / parent is unable to ensure that children are safe from harm
Parents of children aged up to 19 will be accepted to the programme or 25 if children have learning difficulties or disabilities.
The service will not offer a counselling service, but will seek to focus on improving parental capacity / rebuilding relationships, where this has been impacted within either of the two groups detailed above in points 1 and 2.
Group 1 – adult victims
Whilst both females and males can be victims of sexual violence and abuse, it is a gender based issue which disproportionately affects females.
The service will work one-to-one with female and male adult victims of sexual violence and abuse with the aim of delivery of the outcomes described in the ‘what are we trying to achieve?’ section of this specification.
It is anticipated that due to the gender imbalance of victims that the majority will be female and based on previous experience and research will wish to have a female support worker. Where victims (male or female) request a male support worker this should be brought in on a sessional basis, to avoid the employment of staff that may potentially be significantly underutilised.
The service will include direct work with any children that have been impacted in the family in addition to the parents.
The service will include work with partners of the main attendee (adult victim) of the programme, providing they are not the perpetrator.
Services will be delivered to victims regardless of their sexuality.
The way in which the Provider achieves the outcomes is for the Tenderers to develop and detail in their tender applications.
Group 2 – child/young person victims
The service will work one-to-one with parents (both genders with the exception of the perpetrator where relevant) where their child (both genders) has been the victim of sexual violence and abuse with the aim of delivery of the outcomes described in the ‘what are we trying to achieve?’ section of this specification.
This will include direct work with the child and their siblings, where they have been impacted, in addition to the parents.
The way in which the Provider achieves the outcomes is for the Tenderers to develop and detail in their tender applications.
Gender appropriate delivery locations
Space to deliver the services shall be gender appropriate with separate space for female and male victims.
Signposting to counselling/advocacy and other support
We are seeking a specialist Provider to deliver these services. Where formal counselling support services are provided by the Provider of the Prevention and Support service, referrals will be made where relevant, for both adult and child victims. Where the Provider of the Prevention and Support service does not deliver formal counselling support services they will be expected to signpost on to the closest support service.
Community awareness raising
The Provider will allocate half a day per month to awareness raising activities within Thurrock. This will require a qualified member of staff attending community venues and thus building awareness in the borough, in order for more victims to access support and know how to seek additional help (via the Provider liaising with the Prevention and Support Service or Social Care). The awareness raising should be focussed in areas that are identified where there are known high levels of abuse yet low take-up of support by victims.
It should also be focussed on ensuring that those service users described in the ‘specific groups’ element of this service specification are also encouraged to seek support.
Website
The Provider will host a website with the following information:
· Details of the services offered
· Contact telephone numbers and email addresses
· Fact sheets on sexual violence and abuse that can be downloaded
· Links to national helplines
· Contact details of non-emergency police services
· Links to: legal, housing, benefits advice
· Links to support services for substance misuse and mental health support
The details of services available will also be made available to the Council’s Family Information Service website
Delivery locations
The Provider is expected to secure and fund their own premises to both accommodate staff and deliver programmes from. These will be fit for purpose and have adequate insurance and liability cover in place and will be compliant with the Equalities Act 2010.
It is envisaged that children’s centres will provide space at nil cost to deliver a limited number of one-to-one programmes, where this is appropriate and at the request of the service user, however space is limited and there is no set allocation. Requests will be considered along with other groups and Providers wishing to use the building space that is available. Some health clinics may also be able to provide limited space.