Urgent Support Services for Vulnerable Children during Covid-19

The intention of this contract is to identify vulnerable children and young people who are hidden from view during Covid-19 and provide frontline assistance and support to them. These are children who are not receiving support currently from statutory agencies; and are at risk of harm and/or experiencing adverse impact to their health and wellbeing due to Covid-19.

The contract will focus on supporting children experiencing or at risk of hidden harm. These are vulnerable children who do not meet the threshold for statutory services and do not have an education, health and care plan or child in need or child protection plan and who are not looked after. These children and young people are being adversely impacted by lockdown.

The purpose of the contract is to prevent their needs escalating so that they do not require more significant interventions either now or at a later date. The group of children that will be identified include those who have experienced or are at risk of serious crimes, young people with disabilities and SEND, children in families experiencing domestic abuse and young couples perpetrating domestic abuse, children experiencing mental health difficulties, trafficked children and homeless families and young people.

As a result of Covid-19 measures, there is a specific need to provide additional services to children who either are, or at risk of, experiencing harm because many of the usual mechanisms for identifying risks have been removed or are experiencing other pressures, for example health visitors, police, community hubs, GPs and schools.

In this instance the events that have led to the extreme urgency are the lockdown which has been a key measure in trying to contain Covid-19 and in conjunction with that the closure of schools, to all but a specified minority of children. Whilst that minority has included 'vulnerable children' (as defined in the DfE Guidance: Supporting Vulnerable Children and Young People During the Coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak - actions for educational providers and other partners, updated 15 Mai 2020) not all such children have been in attendance and some children who would not have met the definition of 'vulnerable' at the commencement of the lockdown will have become 'vulnerable' during the lockdown period.