Pin Notice:Children and Young People’s Support Service

2. II.2.4

SOFT MARKET TESTING: Children and Young People’s Support Service The London Borough of Hackney is currently exploring the possibility of developing a framework to deliver a range of support services for children and young people who are looked after or children in need. Prior to any formal market engagement event we invite prospective providers to participate in a soft market test to enhance our knowledge of the current market and what it is able to offer. This will inform the market engagement event and eventually the specification for the service delivery. Currently there are 400 looked after young people in Hackney. This number is on the rise and we find ourselves providing more and more of our children with additional support to meet their needs and provide them with some stability either in their care arrangements or while they are placed with family. We find this achieves some great outcomes for our young people and have seen the benefits of having children matched with engaging support workers. Support Services Currently, we use different providers to offer a range of support services to our young people. This is in a variety of different forms. We often rely on support workers to provide; an escort to and from an education provision, or contact. To be stationed in the child's home to offer the carer support and respite, taking children out for activities and mentoring, also helping with any additional care a child may need. We are also seeing an increase in the number of children who need this support that have additional needs such as Autism, young people struggling with their mental health and those needing support to engage in positive activities to increase their confidence. We are seeking companies which have experience of successfully delivering any of the above services for vulnerable children and young people, who may also be looked after. The principles to which any new service must adhere is that support will be: flexible, timely and appropriate and will be delivered as and when required; this includes same day support requests and potentially out of hours delivered in partnership so that people can access mainstream services and their local community easily; focussed on keeping young people safe, so that they can maintain good health and wellbeing; tailored to meet individual needs and provide a clear pathway to enable people to be as independent as possible; of good quality and will cater for temporary, short-term and long-term needs; sustainable, affordable and will deliver good value for money. Experienced, child focussed support workers with a range of skills to suit the needs of our young people. Support workers that reflect the cultural and ethnic backgrounds of the children and young people in Hackney. Focus on keeping young people engaged with key services. Provide timely, accurate and good quality reports to social workers. Interested parties will not be prejudiced by any response or failure to respond to this soft market testing exercise and a response to this notice does not guarantee any invitation to participate in any future public procurement process that the LBH may conduct. This notice does not constitute a call for competition to procure any services for the Council and the Council is not bound to accept any proposals offered. The Council is not liable for any costs, fees or expenses incurred by any party participating in the soft market testing/sounding exercise. Any procurement of any services by the Council in due course will be carried out strictly in accordance with the provisions of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. Registering an interest If you are interested in participating in the soft market testing exercise please complete a questionnaire sheet and return . You will need to register your interest via the ProContract portal (reference no. DN635689) All communication regarding this exercise will be conducted through the messaging functions of the ProContract portal to ensure transparency and a clear audit trail of enquiries. The deadline for registering interest and completing the questionnaire is Wednesday 12th 19th October 2022 12 noon.