Grant-Funding Programme – Community Short Breaks for Children and Young People with Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities

Tender description

Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council (the Council) is proposing to establish a range of provision to deliver community short breaks for children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). The Council is proposing to commission, via a grant funding programme, a range of providers that can collectively deliver a diverse community short breaks offer based on what families and young people have told us they need. Provision will commence on 1 October 2026. The Council is looking to commission two tiers of support to be delivered as part of community short breaks provision: • Tier 1 Specialist support – 1:1 staff to child ratio for young people with complex SEND and/or behavioural needs. Personal care and/or support with medication may be required. Nursing support may be required to support children and young people with more complex medical needs within some tier 1 community short breaks provision. • Tier 2 Targeted support – Standard offer of 1:3 or lower (1:4, 1:5+ etc) staff to child ratio, with the ability for some providers to offer 1:2 support where appropriate. Tier 2 support is for children and young people that do not need specialist support of tier 1 but are unable to access universal/mainstream provision. Both tiers of support need to be delivered as activity-based group sessions. The Council is undertaking this pre-market engagement exercise to explore what is available in the supply market. As part of this exercise the Council is requesting responses to questions detailed in a Microsoft forms survey. If your organisation wishes to express an interest in applying to become a community short breaks provider please complete the survey. For further information and to complete the survey, please download the Pre-Market Engagement exercise document. The deadline to submit completed surveys is Friday 20th March 2026 at 12noon. Please note, this is not a procurement exercise. This is Pre-Market Engagement for grant funding.