Partnerships
The Trust has a long history of working together with other funding organisations, in order to further joint aims and increase impact in the various fields we fund.
Examples of recent partnerships include:
Wates Foundation
The Trust has worked with the Wates Foundation on a number of joint projects since 2016. The first was a joint call for applications to design and pilot an outreach, independent specialist legal advice and advocacy service for parents in prison.
This developed from conversations about our work in the fields of child welfare and criminal justice, and the shared priorities and interests of both funding organisations in this area – particularly the gaps we identified in advice services for prisoners with children in local authority care.
The programme was targeted at prisoners whose children may be considered for adoption whilst they serve their prison sentences, and involved a small-scale process evaluation of the implementation and early impact of the pilot service. The aim was for the service to help women in prison to understand what is involved in statutory care planning for their children, and to help them to contribute to decision making in an informed and meaningful way – with the needs of children being paramount.
There was significant interest in the funding programme and, following several rounds of application assessments, in November 2016 both funders were very pleased to award a joint grant for a three-year pilot project to be delivered by Prisoners’ Advice Service, working in partnership with Rights of Women and with an evaluation to be conducted by the Centre for Child and Family Justice Research at Lancaster University. The resulting project was a resounding success, with a thorough evaluation report that included a series of recommendations for future implementation and roll-out of the valuable work piloted through this programme.
The latest collaboration between our organisations launched in 2022. Through funding projects in the youth homeless sectors, and consultations with organisations working in this field, both Trusts became increasingly aware of key times of transition that increase the risk of young people becoming homeless. Such transitions included leaving school, leaving care, moving out of the family home, leaving prison, religious transitions and moving on from existing homeless services.
Following a call for proposals and an assessment process, a joint grant was awarded to Trevi, an award-winning women’s and children’s charity in the South West of England. Project Sparkles seeks to prevent homelessness in young women, prevent violence against young women and girls, and give young women affected by multiple disadvantages, particularly those who have previously been in the care system, the opportunity to thrive and flourish. The project, due to complete in 2025, will be externally evaluated by the University of Plymouth.
London Catalyst and Hospital Saturday Fund
In 2019 the Trust participated in the Partners4Health (P4H) 2019 Grants Programme, as a co-funder with London Catalyst and the Hospital Saturday Fund.
The programme aimed to fund projects that supported vulnerable people to improve their health, and could demonstrate:
- Positive outcomes for people facing significant barriers to health
- A new approach or thoughtful development of service
- A partnership between health and community organisations.
It was aimed at registered charities operating in London, and priority was given to charities with an annual income of <£500,000 and which had not previously received a ‘Partners for Health’ grant.
The programme had been run in previous years with London Catalyst and Hospital Saturday Fund. Given the fit with the Trust’s aims and objectives, the Trust came on board as a third funder in 2019 to increase the capacity of the programme – in particular enabling multi-year funding to be awarded, and also to offer a new dimension to the programme of supporting dissemination of the funded projects.
Following assessments of written applications and meetings with applicants involving all three funders, 14 grants were awarded. The range and breadth of the projects was fascinating, and all of the Grantees did exceptionally well in the circumstances, despite the negative impact of Covid-19 at that time, which meant that all had to adapt their projects in some way.
“Thank you very much for this funding. It contributed to a chain of events that led to the creation of the neurodisability clinic, allowing early recognition and intervention for children with cerebral palsy.”
Born on the Edge
