Welcome

Dear Potential Partner,

Welcome to this opportunity to partner with the St Martin’s Frontline Network.

1

Partnership Application Pack

Application for 2 year Frontline Network

partnership July 2017 – June 2019

Deadline: May 26th 2017

If you have any questions about the application process, please don’t hesitate to contact Natalie King, Network Development Manager at Natalie.King@stmartinscharity.org.uk

It is less than 3 years since the Vicar’s Relief Fund moved to using an online application process to receive grants from frontline workers supporting homeless and vulnerably housed people across the UK.  In that time, thousands of crisis grants have been offered to people for whom, we believe, will have improved housing stability and security.

What this helped bring to our attention is the key role that frontline workers play in addressing housing and homelessness issues.  We also recognised that we are in a unique position to provide additional support to frontline workers across the UK. However, we know that we cannot do this alone.

Last year we began working with a small number of partner organisations to help us build the Frontline Network.  Since we began this process we have listened and learned to our partners while making good progress in building the core features of the Network.

Through this partnership opportunity we are seeking to identify partner organisations to help us to continue to build the Frontline Network. We are looking for partners to help us realise our vision and:

Develop local strategies for engaging frontline workers in decision making processes and service delivery design.

Create opportunities for frontline workers to share experience and expertise in person through local events.

Support the development of ideas among local frontline workers which can be submitted for ideas funding.

Develop, share and highlight best practice – which can then be shared both locally and nationally through the Frontline Network website.

To promote the Frontline Network resources (forum, ideas board, website) among frontline workers in their area.

We are offering the opportunity for organisations who share this vision to enter into a two year partnership with the Frontline Network and receive funding of up to £30,000. We hope you are as excited about this opportunity as we are and look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes,

Tim Bissett

Director, St Martin-in-the-Fields Charity

Introduction

2

The Frontline Network was launched in June 2016 by St Martin-in-the-Fields Charity to add to the support that we currently offer through the Vicar’s Relief Fund (VRF).

The Frontline Network is based on the recognition that frontline workers are a key asset in tackling homeless and housing issues in the UK, and yet in the current funding climate they can often be under-resourced in their organisations and their voices unheard by key decision-makers.

The Network therefore seeks to harness the ideas, energy and experience of those at the frontline, by building relationships, sharing best practice, developing solutions and communicating the experience and views of

Application

3

Organisation Name:

Lead Contact Name:

Role:

Email:

Contact tel:

The Frontline Network was launched in June 2016 by St Martin-in-the-Fields Charity to add to the support that we currently offer through the Vicar’s Relief Fund (VRF).

The Frontline Network is based on the recognition that frontline workers are a key asset in tackling homeless and housing issues in the UK, and yet in the current funding climate they can often be under-resourced in their organisations and their voices unheard by key decision-makers.

The Network therefore seeks to harness the ideas, energy and experience of those at the frontline, by building relationships, sharing best practice, developing solutions and communicating the experience and views of

BackgroundThese are questions about your existing situation and past experiences. Max 200 word limit per question. Please read the guidance at the end of the application before completing your answers.

4

Q1. Are there currently any ways that local frontline workers can feed their views and experiences into local decision making? If yes, do you participate in this and what is your role?

Q2. Are there opportunities for frontline workers in your area to share experience and expertise with each other? If yes, please provide details.

5

Q3. Are there any local resources, specifically for frontline workers, that frontline workers can draw on locally to help achieve better outcomes for their clients? If yes, please provide details.

Q4. Has your service previously developed new or innovative ways of tackling common client issues? If yes, please provide details.

6

Q5. Have you previously been involved in developing best practice guidance, either on a local or national level? If yes, please provide details.

Q6. What current partnerships do you have?

ProposalThese are questions about how you would propose fulfilling the partnership aims. Max 300 word limit per question. Please read the guidance at the end of the application before completing your answers.

7

Q7. How would you encourage the views of frontline workers to be taken into account and represented at local homelessness forums, etc?

Q8. How would you create opportunities for frontline workers in your local area to share experience and expertise through local events?

Q9. How would you support frontline workers, from both within your organisation and in other local services, to develop their ideas for improving client outcomes?

8

Q8. How would you create opportunities for frontline workers in your local area to share experience and expertise through local events?

Q9. How would you support frontline workers, from both within your organisation and in other local services, to develop their ideas for improving client outcomes?

Q10. How would you draw on the experience of local frontline workers to develop best practice guidance? Is there a particular area around which you would specifically like to develop a piece of best practice?

Q11. How would you utilise the existing Frontline Network resources to facilitate the activities you have outlined above? (eg, Forum, Ideas Board, Closed Discussion Groups)

9

Q12. What is your main motivation for wanting to be a partner of the St Martin’s Frontline Network?

Q13. What would success of this partnership look like for you and how would you measure it?

Additional Info

GuidancePlease use the following guidance when answering the application questions. The first round of shortlisting will be based on the responses to this application document. The guidance is designed to show the thinking behind the aims and objectives, and to highlight past examples from existing partners, but it is not meant to be exhaustive. We are keen to hear new ideas about how you could play a role in facilitating the voice of frontline workers in your area and how you could support them locally. We want to hear your ideas and are keen for you to be creative in how you go about this.

The following offers guidance in relation to each of the key application questions:

Question 1

For example, in Cardiff there is a ‘Frontline Forum’ where frontline workers can put forward their views and these are then taken into account at the equivalent managers’ meeting. What we would like to know is if there are already any

10

Amount you are applying for (max £30,000 over two years):

Please also supply the following, either as separate attachments or below:

- Budget Outline (please break this down to include a rough expectation of staff costs; extra resource costs; travel costs; event costs etc)

- Outline of how you would staff the proposed activities above and if there are other resources that you would be drawing on.

- An outline timetable of expected activities / events.

mechanisms for frontline workers putting their views forward to local commissioners, etc. If there is, we would like to know whether you currently participate in this. In question 7, we are then looking for you to outline how you would facilitate this through this partnership.

Question 2

We are keen to know if there are currently any regular opportunities for frontline workers at different services in the local area to come together and share the current trends they are seeing among their clients, to share information on what their service does or to share expertise on common client problems?

Question 3

By local resources, we mean are there any local discretionary funds that local frontline workers are able to access on a regular basis to help clients? Or opportunities for frontline workers to receive funding to develop ideas which are aimed at improving client outcomes. For example, anything similar to the Ideas Board.

Question 4

What we are looking to find out is have there been any occasions where you have identified a common client problem and designed/ developed a service to tackle this problem? Have you ever been awarded funding for a project which was responding to a particular unmet need in your local area? Are there any services which you have developed which tackle common problems in a way which is different to other services doing a similar thing?

Question 5

One of the potential outcomes we are looking for from partners is that if there are common issues that are being raised by local frontline workers, is there a way of developing guidance on how to deal with these issues if there isn’t already any available. We are therefore keen to hear if your service has previously developed any toolkits or best practice guides (or similar) in the past?

Question 6

We are keen to know if you currently work in partnership with any other local charities or the local authority? Or if you are part of any bigger, national, partnerships? We would also be keen to hear about any partnership ideas that you would like to develop, which you think this funding would enable you to do.

Question 7

If you have outlined existing structures that allow frontline workers to do this in question 1, we are keen to hear how you would add to this, and work alongside and support existing structures. If there aren’t any existing opportunities for this, we would like to know what local decision making forums you have

11

identified (eg, local homelessness forum), where you could represent the views and experiences of local frontline workers, and how you would go about collecting the views of frontline workers from your local area to feed into these.

Question 8

A key aim of the Frontline Network and role of partner organisations is to facilitate opportunities for frontline workers to meet each other in person. We know that opportunities to meet in person are really valued but can prove difficult when people have such busy time schedules. We are therefore keen to create opportunities for frontline workers to meet in person and would like to know how feasible you think this is in your area, and how often you might plan to hold face to face meetings and how you would structure them.

Question 9

One of the key resources provided by the Frontline Network is that of the Ideas Board. The Ideas Board provides an opportunity for individual frontline workers to put forward an idea for developing a project that will improve client outcomes and bid for funding to turn the idea into practice. This is an exciting opportunity which places value on frontline workers as a key resource in the challenge of tackling homelessness and gives them the practical tools to do so, rather than becoming frustrated by the lack of power to tack action. We are keen for frontline workers to be encouraged to explore solutions to common client problems and to have some support in turning their idea into something that could realistically be delivered. We are therefore interested to see how you would support frontline workers in your area to do this? We have seen some examples where local events have been used to discuss common problems and then brainstorm ways of overcoming these problems, resulting in an idea being put forward to funding. This is one way this could be done but we are open to suggestion and keen to hear your ideas.

Question 10

Through the activities highlighted above, there will be opportunities to hear about the common experiences of frontline workers and their clients. Often they are in a great position to suggest best practice for dealing with common issues but also to establish ways for dealing with emerging issues. If you have outlined previous experience of developing best practice in question 5, how would you use your activities as part of the Network partnership to develop new best practice guidance or toolkits? If you haven’t done this before, do you have ideas for how you may be able to do this and if there are any specific areas that you feel are lacking guidance on best practice at the moment. This may be something which emerges naturally from the rest of your partnership activities so please don’t worry if you don’t have strong ideas on this at the moment.

Question 11

As well as the resources outlined above, we also have the ability to create ‘closed’ discussion groups as part of the forum. This would allow a member of staff from a partner organisation to create a local discussion group for frontline workers in your area, which is invite only and can’t be viewed through the

12

forum unless you have access. This offers the opportunity to continue discussions which may be started at events or come from ideas. If you would like to find out more about this feature please feel free to get in contact.

13

Please send the completed application form to Natalie.King@stmartinscharity.org.uk by the date on the front of the pack. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact Natalie King, Network Development Manager, either by email or by phone (07749765924).