Market Engagement for Counselling and Support Services

Birmingham Children's Trust is initiating a market engagement for the upcoming "Counselling and Support Services." This engagement aims to understand the capability and capacity of the market to inform our re-procurement process, which will be conducted in line with the Procurement Act 2023.

The contract (Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) is to provide therapeutic services for children and young people impacted by sexual abuse, violence, or exploitation and to their parent(s) or carer(s) to minimise the impact of the abuse on their mental health and emotional wellbeing. The service will:

• Provide therapeutic services to children and young people, up to 18 years of age (this may be extended up to 21 years of age for care leavers), who are the victims of sexual abuse, violence or exploitation and to their parent(s) or carer(s) in order to minimise the impact of the abuse on their mental health and emotional wellbeing;
• Promote resilience for the child or young person to enhance their prospects of positive outcomes and to enable them to promote their own safety and wellbeing;
• Direct service users to specialist services if continuing or other needs are identified and to facilitate access through established processes.

In addition to the main contract, there will be a Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) Support Service for Children and young people assessed as Experiencing or Emerging CSE, and their parents/carers/families. The service will be delivered through Independent Sexual Violence Advocacy (ISVA) support, Counselling/therapeutic support and Supporter counselling/therapeutic support:

• To provide a child-centred, strengths-based, trauma informed and responsive approach that is both flexible & tailored to meet the needs of children and young people subjected to CSE.
• To provide a compassionate and relational approach to each child and young person, which works to acknowledge the systems, contexts and safe, protective relationships around them.
• To build the resilience of the protective factors and relationships around children and young people, while working actively to build psychological safety, trust and rapport.
• To build ‘wrap around,’ holistic support for the families, parents/carers & professionals supporting children and young people.

Referrals will be predominately from BCT, the market engagement event will facilitate question's and answer's and provide an overview of the service.