Soft Market Testing: Provision of Supplemental Student Mental Health and Wellbeing Services

Tender description

The University of Southampton is currently exploring it's options in relation to expanding its Wellbeing provision to allow us to flex and meet demand throughout the academic year and better meet the needs of the students that we are supporting. The focus of this work is currently on expanding the number of Wellbeing Practitioners (Mental Health Advisers) and Counsellors that our students can access, but we would also be interested in other wellbeing services that would complement and / or replace our existing services. A contractor is required from March 2022 (for up to four years) to provide additional wellbeing resources to support the provision of our wellbeing services for University of Southampton students. It would be preferred if the contractor could deliver both in person and online support, but only online (via Teams) would also be considered. The appointed contractor should have robust risk management frameworks and protocols in place and should be able to provide supervision for all staff as part of the agreement. The appointed contractor would have access to University of Southampton case management systems. An indicative value of this project is in the region of £400,000 The University is keen to explore all options that may be available in the marketplace and interested parties are invited to complete and return a questionnaire and attend a Soft Market Testing event to introduce their services. The deadline for the receipt of completed questionnaires and requests to attend a Soft Market Testing event is 12:00 (Noon) 26th November 2021. The questionnaire and any information released under this procurement process has been issued by the University in connection with a soft market testing exercise that is being run under the Light Touch Regime as set out in the Public Contract Regulations 2015. Information received as part of this soft market testing exercise shall be used to help shape the University's final strategy and scope of any resulting procurement process. Please Note: The University is conducting this soft market testing exercise to allow interested parties, with appropriate experience, to outline their views and provide impartial information to the University with no commitment to themselves or the University. This is not a call for competition at this stage.