Access to Opportunity
School ~ Home ~ Community
We at the Charity are giving much thought to how we might best respond to alleviate some of the anticipated difficulties that the current recession and reduced education budgets might bring. To ensure that the Charity's resources are expended directly for the benefit of the most disadvantaged young people, we consider that funds could be managed through schools, exploiting the crucial link between schools, home-life and community. Schools are uniquely placed to understand the dynamic between a young person's home-life and how support should be deployed there. It is, therefore, most appropriate that schools organise this additional support, whether from school-based staff like Learning Mentors or from Children's Trust-centred staff, such as social workers and health care professionals.
The Charity also supports the continuing trend for schools to work together in groups and cluster arrangements, maximising limited resources and impacting on a larger number of children.
All state schools within the Charity’s beneficial area are invited to apply to this new grants programme. Applications are invited from groups of schools, in partnership with local voluntary organisations where appropriate, for programmes aimed at supporting their most challenged pupils, strengthening links with home life and co-coordinating the support of other available professionals. We anticipate that a typical application might centre on a key worker, based at the “lead school”, whose brief would be to “project manage” support for a “caseload” of named individual young people.
A typical proposal might cost £25,000-£50,000. Funding will be available for a maximum of three years. It is hoped that after the initial start-up period, the projects will be self-financing, having justified their continuation through their success. Details of how projects will seek to be self-financing will be an important part of applications submitted.
For more information please contact the Charity on 020 7591 3330.
