Equal opportunities consultancy services

Tender description

This tender is for a leadership development programme targeting the most marginalised young adults within our council area and immediate cross-border area. The project is Activity 5.7b within our ‘Building Positive Relations’ work-plan for the council's PEACE IV programme. The programme has a strong focus on reaching adults within the 16 - 25 age group. It will run in 2 phases with phase 2 being a repeat of the same programme only with new participants. Each phase should run for approximately 1 year for participants with the tenderer allowing additional time for staff and participant recruitment at the start and for administrative and financial closure of the project at the end. The estimated overall time-scale is October 2017 — June 2020. The term ‘marginalised’ is deliberately not tightly defined to allow for professional discretion of the tenderer. It is recognised that a variety of social, economic, educational, identity and other issues lead to marginalisation. Participants should be those who are most marginalised or invisible in their communities and at risk of engaging in anti-social and/or criminal activities. The aim is to inspire and equip participants, giving them sense of belonging and hope to explore their potential and possibility of developing a career path for them or to explore the potential of setting up their own business or social enterprise. In total over both phases it will reach and sustain 70 participants, but due to the high ‘attrition’ potentially with the category of participants, the tenderer must build in allowance for at least 50 % drop out and will therefore be required to recruit 70 participants per phase minimum. To ultimately count as a project participant, participants must engage in a sustained way over the entire programme including completion of the baseline and end of project monitoring questionnaires. The gender balance of participants on the programme is open to all genders (including transgender), but may be weighted disproportionately towards more young men than young women on the programme as the Peace IV Programme already has a gender based programme focused towards women and because the need may be greater for this programme amongst young men.