NHS England Health & Justice South East - Children and Young Person's Framework for Integrated Care Community Service (Thames Valley)

This notice is placed as a Prior Information Notice (PIN) to seek expressions of interest from organisations interested in delivering the Children and Young Person's Framework for Integrated Care (FfIC) Community Services in the Thames Valley area on behalf of NHS England Health & Justice South East (the commissioner).

The Children and Young Person's Framework for Integrated Care demonstrates NHSE's commitment to invest in additional support for the most vulnerable Children and Young People (CYP) who have complex needs and can be described as presenting with high risk, high harm behaviours and high vulnerability. The intention is to support and strengthen community services for these CYP whose complex needs are currently not being met.

The service is to be delivered in three areas of the Thames Valley region (Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire) and needs to consist of:

• A service that offers a clinical screening, assessment and professional consultancy resource to other teams and practitioners (e.g. social care, education, youth offending teams (YOTs)) in the area regarding referrals of vulnerable children with complex needs at risk of contact with the criminal justice system. The service will also advise teams and services on onward referrals of children to other appropriate services in the area.
• A youth worker service, providing ongoing face to face support to a small caseload of Children and Young People with complex needs referred by the screening and assessment service

The service will need to facilitate integrated local trauma-informed systems that enable vulnerable children and young people with complex needs to thrive. The Service will need to be characterised by a close level of integration between the clinical delivery and youth work delivery.

Interested providers are invited to complete a short questionnaire as part of an information gathering exercise by the commissioner to inform their strategic direction and service specification (details at the end of this notice).

It is anticipated that a contract will commence on 1st April 2025.

The contract term will be 4 years, with an estimated total contract value of £6,789,196.

This exercise is being carried out by NHS South, Central and West Commissioning Support Unit (SCW) on behalf of the Commissioner.

This notice is placed as a Prior Information Notice (PIN) to seek expressions of interest from organisations interested in delivering the Children and Young Person's Framework for Integrated Care (FfIC) Community Services in the Thames Valley area on behalf of NHS England Health & Justice South East (the commissioner).

The Children and Young Person's Framework for Integrated Care demonstrates NHSE's commitment to invest in additional support for the most vulnerable children and young people (CYP) who have complex needs and can be described as presenting with high risk, high harm behaviours and high vulnerability. The intention is to support and strengthen community services for these CYP whose complex needs are currently not being met.

The service is to be delivered in three areas of the Thames Valley region (Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire) and needs to consist of:

• A service that offers a clinical screening, assessment and professional consultancy resource to other teams and practitioners (e.g. social care, education, youth offending teams (YOTs)) in the area regarding referrals of vulnerable children with complex needs at risk of contact with the criminal justice system. The service will also advise teams and services on onward referrals of children to other appropriate services in the area.
• A youth worker service, providing ongoing face to face support to a small caseload of children and young people with complex needs referred by the screening and assessment service.

The service will need to facilitate integrated local trauma-informed systems that enable vulnerable children and young people with complex needs to thrive. The Service will need to be characterised by a close level of integration between the clinical delivery and youth work delivery.

Background

Children and Young People (CYP) with complex needs experience some of the highest levels of health inequality as current systems collectively struggle to meet the needs of this group.

Their needs are defined as 'complex', as they often are:

• multiple - not just in one domain, such as mental and physical health
• persistent - long term rather than transient
• severe - not responding to standard interventions and
• framed by family and social contexts - early family disruption, loss, inequality, prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences.

CYP with complex needs are often challenged by service eligibility thresholds and are at risk of contact with the criminal justice system due to perceptions of behaviours and lack of engagement with formal approaches to referral and service delivery.

Framework for Integrated Care

The vision for the National CYP Framework for Integrated Care (FfIC) is to facilitate local integrated trauma-informed systems that enable children and young people with complex needs to thrive. The intention of the FfIC is to effect cultural change through developing local, sustainable, and trauma-informed children's emotional wellbeing services by:

1) working collaboratively across services to co-ordinate, integrate and deliver trauma- informed care.

2) genuine co-production with CYP with complex needs, and their families, to develop services and systems that are accessible and acceptable to them.

3) working with the child directly, through relationships with staff in the role of 'young people's champions' who are psychologically informed and well supported, have a positive view of young people and are able to understand them, and who advocate for and support them effectively along their journeys.

The provider of the service will be able to evidence successful delivery regarding the 6 key Outcomes for the FfIC over the course of the Contract.

The key outcomes are:

1) Improved CYP wellbeing

2) Reduction in high-risk behaviours

3) Reduced mental health concern

4) Organisations that are more trauma-informed

5) Improved purpose/occupation for CYP

6) Improved stability of home.

The provider will be required to deliver a service in three areas of the Thames Valley, including Oxfordshire, Berkshire, and Buckinghamshire. The service will seek to integrate a screening, assessment and professional's consultancy and advisory resource for referrals from other services and professionals in touch with vulnerable children and young people with complex needs who do not reach threshold for formal interventions and who are at risk of contact with the criminal justice system alongside a youth worker resource that actively engages children referred via the screening and assessment resource. The youth work provision will work alongside children and their families to support engagement with education, work or other meaningful activity whilst promoting positive health and wellbeing.

The provider will be required to report against a national FfIC dataset, participate in relevant national and local events and forums. The provider will also need to engage with key stakeholders and agencies in the area to support the further development of trauma informed approaches to working with vulnerable children with complex needs.

The provider will be required to fully support and participate in the NHSE SE funded regional evaluation of the Framework for Integrated Care Projects.

It is anticipated that a contract will commence on 1st April 2025.

The contract term will be 4 years, with an estimated total contract value of £6,789,196.

TUPE is likely to apply.

At this time, the Commissioner would like to determine the level of provider interest in delivering these services. Interested providers are invited to complete a short questionnaire as part of an information gathering exercise by the commissioner to inform their strategic direction and service specification.

If you are interested in these services, please register on the e-procurement system, Atamis (details at the end of this notice) and submit a completed market sounding questionnaire by 12 noon on Tuesday 18th June 2024. Additional information: Additional information in relation to the current National Framework for Integrated Care Dataset, and the vision, principles and intended outcomes of the Framework for Integrated Care can be found within Atamis as separate documents.

These services are healthcare services falling within the Health Care Services, (Provider Selection Regime) (PSR) Regulations 2023. For the avoidance of doubt, the provisions of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, (and the 'Light Touch Regime' contained therein), do not apply to these services and thus do not apply to this notice.