About Step Forward Tees Valley
Everyturn Mental Health is a member of the Northern Inclusion Consortium (NIC); together with the other NIC partners we deliver the Step Forward Tees Valley (SFTV) programme across the Tees Valley area. The project aims to support people experiencing barriers and complex needs move closer towards work and training opportunities, and it is joint-funded by the Big Lottery Fund and European Social Fund.
The SFTV programme has defined objectives to:
- Increase the access and engagement onto the programme
- Improve the confidence, employability and job specific skills of all participants on the Step Forward Tees Valley programme by co-ordinating an offer of education and skills learning
About the opportunity
As part of the Building Better Opportunities programme in Tees Valley, the NIC is looking to appoint a service provider to deliver a specific support service to participants experiencing autism, Asperger syndrome, and learning difficulties.
The service will be expected to cover the Darlington, Stockton, Middlesbrough, Hartlepool, and Redcar and Cleveland local authority areas.
In seeking to meet SFTV’s overall objectives, the NIC has recently engaged a third party provider to pilot a support programme, to provide specialist support to help improve the training and employability prospects of participants experiencing the conditions above. Following successful completion of the initial but limited eight-week pilot programme, the NIC has determined a need to expand and enhance the existing pilot over the remaining life of the programme – currently to September 2019.
The NIC is now looking to appoint a suitable provider to deliver the service for an initial 11-12 months (until the end of August 2019), with an option to extend depending on the life of the overall programme.
The successful provider will be expected to have specialist knowledge, understanding and experience of working with the target audience and delivering tangible outcomes. SFTV stresses that the specialist support required for this particular group is clearly over and above that typically provided by general employability interventions.
How to register interest
Interested parties who believe they have the right skills and experience to deliver such a service, and would like to receive a copy of the tender documents, should register their interest by email to paul.dixon@changing-lives.org.uk (on behalf of Northern Inclusion Consortium).
You should quote your contact name, telephone number and email address.
It is anticipated that the invitation to tender will be issued electronically to interested parties on Monday 27 August 2018. Any change to the proposed date will be notified accordingly.