£2.69m boost for family projects

Jan 26 2012

More than 800 families across Scotland are set to benefit from a £2.69 million lottery funding award for projects which help vulnerable children.

Three projects which provide support for families with multiple and complex needs will share in the announced cash injection. The initiatives will see large charities working with some of the smallest community organisations and local public services.

The Scottish initiatives are among 15 partnership projects across the UK sharing in £15.2 million from the Big Lottery Fund's Improving Futures programme.

Big Lottery Fund chair Maureen McGinn said: "These groundbreaking Scottish projects will help to give some of Scotland's most vulnerable children the best start in life by providing tailored and joined-up support for families before they reach the point of crisis.

"Together they will unite some of the country's leading children's charities, key voluntary organisations and public services to reach out in new ways to families who have fallen under the radar, thereby helping them to plan for a better future."

An award of £899,081 to Midlothian Sure Start will benefit 300 families across the region, including family units such as foster carers, kinship carers and siblings with caring responsibilities. The project will work with families before they reach crisis point and will have a particular focus on reaching out to disabled children and those whose families are affected by unemployment and substance misuse.

Nurturing Inverclyde, a partnership project between Barnardos and Inverclyde Council, receives an award of £898,920. The project will provide intensive support for 300 families across Inverclyde, many of whom have been affected by domestic abuse, mental ill health, addiction, trauma and neglect.

It will also bring together the relevant departments of the Local Community Health and Care Partnership (CHCP) to deliver a wide range of family interventions such as parenting groups, homework clubs, art therapy sessions for children, a dad's group and an outreach support services for families.

Four of Scotland's leading children's voluntary sector organisations - Aberlour, Action for Children Scotland, Barnardo's Scotland and CHILDREN 1st - will establish a new Early Intervention Team in Dundee following an award of £900,000.

Over the next three years the project will work with Dundee City Council and NHS Tayside to support more than 200 families across the city, providing them with an early intervention, holistic and preventative service.