More than £300,000 in funding has been granted to charity organisations committed to providing mental health support to children and families within local communities.
So far, 23 groups have been successful in receiving a share of the £325,486 which is being made available by Glasgow City Council who launched a grants programme for tier one and tier two mental health support in children’s services in August.
The programme was introduced to enable a range of community organisations to provide effective early intervention and preventative support in order to meet the diverse well-being needs of children and young people.
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Two grants programmes were then approved.
Programme 1 would provide financial support to third sector provider partners who require additional funding to participate in collaborative learning and development sessions.
Programme 2 funded community-based mental health and well-being programmes which can be delivered by March 31, 2023 by organisations who have successfully engaged with children, young people and families.
A total of £500,000 was available for both programmes which means £174,514 has been left unspent.
A total of 36 applications were received for programme two, but no applications received for programme one. Concerns were then raised about the lack of interest in the first programme at yesterday’s city administration committee.
Labour councillor Cecelia O’Lone said: “The fact that no one applied for the first tier in particular, was quite disappointing. Normally when we put anything out for funding applications, we are inundated with applicants.
“Has any consideration been given to why nobody applied? Is it how it is advertised or did the process seem too complicated?
“The budget is now underspent, is there an opportunity to go back out again and ask for further bids?”
Councillor O’Lone was informed by councillor Chris Cunningham, convener for health, care and caring and older people, that he didn’t have answers to all these questions but would look into it.
Councillor Cunningham said: “It is worth saying that the tier one programme went out at the same time as the tier two programme to broadly speaking the same kind of organisations.
“The fact that no one applied in the first programme would not, you would think, be because of a lack of publicity.
“In relation to programme two we have a number of applications and I hope that the committee today will agree to proceed with those applications.
“Our primary purpose today is to seek authority to award grants to the 23 bidders who were successful in meeting the criteria.
“I think there are questions about what happens in terms of the shortfall. I don’t have complete answers to it but I fully appreciate the question.
“We have to ask if the successful bidders can cope with an increased level of funding and for bidders who were not successful, are there things that we can do to work with them in order to get them through the door?
“We don’t have answers to either of those but I would be very happy for staff to go away and look for those answers. I think it is important for officers to look at those issues to ensure that the same criteria continues to apply.”
The successful organisations are as follows:
- Bethany Christian Trust
- Brunswick Community Development
- Cerebral Palsy Scotland
- Cosgrove Care
- Cultivating Mindfulness
- Epilepsy Scotland
- Govan HELP
- Healing for the Heart
- LGBT Youth Scotland
- Move On
- Music Broth
- North Glasgow Community Food Initiative
- Possibilities for Each and Every Child
- Richmond’s Hope
- Rosemount Lifelong Learning
- Royston Youth Action
- Saheliya
- St Paul’s Youth Forum
- The Princes Trust
- Venture Trust
- Volunteer Glasgow
- Wing Tsjun Scotland
- YoMo
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