Brent Holiday Activities and Food Programme 2021

Brent Council has been awarded funding from the Department for Education to deliver a Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) Programme in 2021, as part of a national scheme. The aim of the programme is to support the physical and mental health and wellbeing of children and young people, encouraging them to engage in interactive and fun activities.

The programme will offer free places at holiday clubs in the Easter, Summer and Christmas school holidays in 2021 for school aged children in Brent (aged 4-16) who are eligible for benefits-related free school meals. Holiday clubs can also be open to children not eligible for free school meals, but their participation will not be funded through the government grant.

The HAF Programme needs to provide activities for 4 hours a day over 4 days a week, for 1 week at Easter, 4 weeks during the summer 2021, and one week at Christmas 2021 holiday periods.

We are keen to work in partnership with our local schools and the community and voluntary sector to offer a varied and wide range of activities. We are seeking expressions of interest from providers who would like to run a holiday club over the Easter holidays.

Places at activity clubs during the Easter holiday will be funded on the basis of £6 per day per child.

We would like to encourage face-to-face programmes of activities, where possible, in line with national guidance.

The aims of the programme are for children who attend:

· To eat more healthily over the school holidays;

· To be more active during the school holidays;

· To take part in engaging and enriching activities which support the development of resilience, character and wellbeing along with their wider educational attainment;

· To be safe and not to be socially isolated;

· To have greater knowledge of health nutrition; and

· To be more engaged with school and other local services.

We welcome expressions of interest from local partner organisations that can help deliver the Brent HAF programme in line with the following DfE standards:

· Healthy meals: holiday clubs must provide at least one healthy meal a day and must meet the School Food Standards throughout the day.

· Enriching activities: holiday clubs must provide fun and enriching activities that provide children with opportunities to develop or consolidate skills or knowledge, to consolidate existing skills and knowledge.

· Physical activities: clubs must offer activities that meet Physical Activity Guidelines on a daily basis.

· Nutritional education: holiday clubs must improve children’s knowledge and awareness of healthy eating, and the HAF programme needs to offer advice and training to parents on how to source, prepare and cook nutritious and low-cost food.

· Signposting and referrals: clubs must be able to provide information, signposting or referrals to other services, and support that would benefit the children who attend their provision and their families.

· Policies and procedures: clubs must be able to demonstrate and explain their safeguarding arrangements and have relevant and appropriate policies and procedures in place in relation to: safeguarding, health and safety, insurance, accessibility and inclusiveness. Where appropriate, clubs must also be compliant with the Ofsted requirements for working with children.

How to Apply

If you are interested in being part of the Brent HAF Programme, please outline your proposal, by completing the expression of interest form (linked on the top left hand side) and returning it to HAF@Brent.gov.uk. If you have any questions, or difficulties completing or submitting this form, please email the same address.

Organisations can apply to provide the enrichment element of the programme, the food element or both. Please indicate if you would like help to identify a partner to work with.

We will use the information you provide on the expression of interest form to award the grant funding in an efficient and transparent way according to the DfE HAF programme standards, aims, objectives and stipulated funding criteria.

We will let you know if your expression of interest for funding has been successful as soon as possible after your proposal has been reviewed. We would encourage applications to be submitted in the next week to maximise planning time given that the Easter holiday is only 4 weeks away.

We will require organisations receiving funding to provide us with key performance data for monitoring purposes, e.g. on the number of children who attend who are eligible for benefits-related free school meals.

You can find more information about the HAF on the DfE website: Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) Programme

If you have any questions about the HAF, please email HAF@Brent.gov.uk