Health and social work services

Tender description

The Council is awarding a contract for the provision of supported accommodation for young people aged 16 — 21 years in the Bournemouth area. The service provision will consist of 2 levels of support available in the following Lots: Medium level supported accommodation, High level supported accommodation. Bids may be submitted for any or all of the Lots within this tender. Following evaluation of bids, the successful tenderers will be awarded a maximum of 2 Lots. The direction of the pathway will be from high level support, where young people will receive support to enable them to learn life skills and to gain employment, education or training, to medium level support where a more flexible approach is taken to enable young people to develop the skills received at High Level. Young people may bypass the High level Support Service and directly access the Medium level Support where they have been assessed this being the appropriate level of support. Continuation of support will enable young people to experience increased independence in preparation for move on into independent accommodation. High Level Support The High level support service will deliver structured support in a group setting including but not limited to drug and alcohol misuse, mental health, sexual health and budgeting. The service will enable young people to stabilise into a routine with the focus on learning life skills and preparation for independent living. The service will also deliver one to one support focusing on the individual needs of young people, to prepare them to move on to Medium level supported accommodation or independent accommodation. The Service will enable young people to learn life skills and will support them to sustain their tenancies and to access employment, education or training. Support Workers will devise a move on strategy for each young person at the start of their tenancy and will work towards preparing the young person for moving on to Medium level support or independent living. The High level supported accommodation will also have 2 emergency beds, one of which will be an Emergency bed which will be used for emergency referrals for a period of up to 7 days, during which time the young person's needs and risks will be assessed and the appropriate level of support will be offered. If further assessment is necessary, the young person will moved to the Assessment bed which will be used for a period of up to four weeks, in order to assess the needs and risks of the young person, then allocate them to the appropriate level of support. A clear Exit Strategy must be devised in collaboration with partner agencies, upon acceptance of all emergency referrals. Medium Level Support The Medium level support service will provide young people with support and guidance on moving on to independent living. The service will include provision of support for issues, including but not limited to, dual diagnosis, sexual health and drug and alcohol problems. The service will deliver support to enable young people to sustain tenancies and to learn life skills to prepare them to live in independent accommodation. Support will be delivered in a flexible way to meet the individual needs of the service users with the focus on independent living which will include access to employment, education or training. The flexible approach will provide the young people with the option of seeing their Support Worker at a time that reasonably suits them. This will allow for activities associated with education, training, employment or job searching. Within the scope of both the above levels of service, the Service Provider will work effectively and efficiently with partner agencies to facilitate the delivery of a support service with a personalisation approach, focused on the individual needs of Service Users. The Service Provider will effectively liaise with Social Workers and will agree Support Plans to ensure the support needs of the Service Users are met. The Authority places emphasis on the importance of working routinely and effectively with partner agencies, particularly Social Workers statutory agencies.