Merseyside Violence Reduction Partnership – Arts | Culture | Sports Fund

Please read the Essential Information before applying. 

 

Merseyside Violence Reduction Partnership – Arts | Culture | Sports Fund

The Merseyside Violence Reduction Partnership (MVRP) has been awarded funding from the Home Office to enable the partnership to continue its work to prevent serious violence. Part of the MVRP funding has been allocated via this grant programme in partnership with the Community Foundation for Merseyside and Merseyside Sports Partnership.
 
For more information on this fund, please join us for an informal drop-in session on Tuesday 12th September at Kirkdale Fire Station between 10am and 12pm. We will be available to answer any questions you may have regarding the fund and your application. 

Kirkdale Fire Station (Bankhall Fire Station, Derby Road, Kirkdale, L20 8EQ)  

What is the fund?

The fund is targeted at arts, culture and sports activities that support young people aged under 25 years who may be more vulnerable to experiencing violence. This could be due to a lack of self-esteem, experiencing challenges at home, they may live in a community where drugs and alcohol are prevalent, or the community may lack infrastructure and accessible services. All these factors are recognised as increasing vulnerability to experiencing violence and/or exploitation.

The panel are looking to support organisations working with young people in either arts and culture or sports, but applications can be considered for collaborations of both. The panel are also keen for organisations to include capacity building costs of the organisation and would encourage consortium/partnership applications that will allow groups to work together. The primary focus of the fund is community provision and out of school hours engagement.

Interventions/programmes delivered must fall into one of the following types:

• Prevention – Awareness-raising or psycho-social education programmes
• Early Intervention – Developmental and diversionary youth outreach activities and programmes
• Therapeutic – Tailored interventions and programmes
• Desistence – Programmes which aim to cease offending or reoffending

Please note that funding must be spent in full by 31^st March 2024.


The Merseyside Violence Reduction Partnership (MVRP) has identified the top Wards by analysing several datasets utilising the Trauma & Injury Intelligence Group Data Hub.  These datasets include: 

• Violence Against the Person – Merseyside Police
• Possession of a Weapon – Merseyside Police
• Deliberate Fires – Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service
• Primary Fires (serious fires that harm people and property) – Merseyside Fire & Rescue Service
• Ambulance callouts – North West Ambulance Service
• Ambulance callouts specifically involving Young People – North West Ambulance Service
• Attendances to an Emergency Department – Merseyside Emergency Departments
• Attendances to an Emergency Department specifically involving Young People – Merseyside Emergency Departments
• Pupils with Special Educational Needs (SEN) Support, Pupils eligible for free school meals, Suspensions & Persistent absences – Department for Education (DfE)

MVRP also used deprivation data using the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) found via the UK Government website. From these datasets, the top wards for each local authority were identified and then totalled together to produce a grand list of the top wards across the Merseyside region.  As can be seen, each local authority is represented along with a count to show how many times that ward featured across the datasets. These top wards demand the most in terms of blue light services, and may also feature within the DfE and IMD datasets. 

 

St Helens                                                                                       Liverpool

• Town Centre [9]                                                                        • Central [3]

• Parr [5]                                                                                      • County [3]

                                                                                                      • Riverside [2]

Sefton                                                                                         • Tuebrook & Stoneycroft [2]

• Linacre [8]                                                                                • Norris Green [3]

• Duke’s [4]

• St Oswald [4]                                                                              Knowsley

• Litherland [3]                                                                             • Northwood [8]

                                                                                                       • Stockbridge [3]

                                                                                                       • Page Moss [2]                                       
 

Wirral

• Bidston & St James [7]

• Birkenhead & Tranmere [7]

• Leasowe & Morton East [2]

• Seacombe [2]

 

Based on local feedback, we would also encourage proposals for:

Knowsley                                                                               

Whiston, Prescot Town Centre and Halewood

Wirral                                                                                  

Upton, Woodchurch, Beechwood, Noctorum and New Ferry

Liverpool  

Princes Park, Picton, Everton, Anfield, Kirkdale, Toxteth/Princes Park, Dingle/Riverside, Kensington and Fairfield, Speke/Garston, Dovecot, Croxteth, Norris Green and West Derby

Sefton   

Park Lane estate and Southport

 

Funding will be prioritised to organisations based within these communities; however, if you are not based within these communities but have identified a need locally, you are still able to apply as long as your application can fully evidence this need and explain how these resources will have a significant impact on tackling these issues.

How much funding can organisations apply for?

We suggest that the minimum grant applied for is £5,000 and maximum grant is £15,000 although larger grants can be considered for partnership proposals that involve multiple delivery partners.  Please note that the total fund is approximately £200,000 and we expect to receive a range of applications from individual groups and consortium/partnerships. The grants panel will award grants that are proportionate to the turnover of the organisation(s) applying.

 

A wide range of arts, culture and sports engagement and prevention activities that meet the below target outcomes can be considered:

• Increased participation of young people in arts, cultural and sports activities
• Increased engagement with young people which is sustainable beyond the VRP funding period
• Improved reported mental health and wellbeing of young people (including anger management)
• Increased perception of personal safety amongst the young people involved
• Improved social, emotional, and behavioural skills
• Improved awareness of the impact of violent crime, particularly knife crime, and the signs and dangers of child criminal exploitation
• Improved aspirations of young people
• Voices of young people and communities being embedded within the organisation
• Increased opportunities for young people

 

Young people’s voices:

The MVRP is extremely keen to involve the community, particularly young people (under 25yrs), in this process to ensure that young people are central to the provision and youth-directed provision is favoured where possible. Applications should therefore include some evidence of young people being involved in the co-production, co-design, or co-evaluation of programmes/projects.

Trauma Informed Training:

Please note, to ensure that delivery aligns with the VRPs strategic priorities, there will be a mandatory requirement for all successful organisations to attend a two-hour trauma informed awareness session to provide staff with an overview of the following six trauma informed core principles in settings.

•    Understanding Trauma and Stress

•    Compassion and Dependability

•    Cultural Humility and Responsiveness

•    Safety and Stability

•    Collaboration and Empowerment

•    Resilience and Recovery

 

Capacity Building:

This fund is keen to support organisational and people development in addition to project and service delivery; therefore, it is a requirement that part of the grant requested includes capacity building costs for your organisation.  In the main, this is dependent on your organisation’s needs and the application form will ask for information on this.  Please note that, in order to ensure that delivery aligns with the VRPs strategic priorities, there will be a mandatory requirement for all successful organisations to engage in trauma informed training and more detail will be provided on this at a later stage.  Capacity building could also include staff and volunteer training, strategy/leadership development, financial planning, website development.

A couple of examples of capacity building support you may wish to consider are:

CVS support

Costs for tailored capacity building support/training that may be offered by your local infrastructure organisation such as One Knowsley, Liverpool CVS, Sefton CVS, Wirral CVS and Halton & St Helens VCA

Directory of Social Change (DSC)

Since 1975, DSC has been working to help make charities stronger. Whatever challenges your organisation, staff, volunteers, trustees or beneficiaries are facing, DSC feel they have the tools and support to help.

Whether it’s raising funds more effectively, improving your leadership and management, getting a better understanding of the impact you’re making and needs of your beneficiaries, or improving your governance, the DSC’s huge range of expert-but-practical courses, books, online resources and more can help you to achieve.

They reach over 30,000 charity people every year, and 90% of them say the support they got helped them to carry out their role better, 88% say their organisation is stronger, and 97% rate the help they’ve received as good or excellent.

To view the DSC’s full range of support, visit www.dsc.org.uk
 

North West Mental Health, Sport and Physical Activity Network:

MSP coordinate Mind’s local Mental Health and Sport and Physical Activity Network. All applicants, and wider system partners who engage with this MVRP work, will be able to access Mind Mental Health Awareness in Sport and Physical Activity eLearning qualification for free. You just need to contact MSP directly for your 100% discount code.

https://www.ukcoaching.org/courses/elearning-courses/mental-health-awareness-for-sport-plus

If you have any questions relating to sports or physical activity, please contact MSP.

Kyle Tunstall, Senior Partnership Officer:
k.tunstall@merseysidesport.com / 07894 398828

Evaluation

Please note that the fund will be evaluated by a third party and it will be a condition of grant that successful applicants will engage with the evaluator. 

 

Who can apply?

Voluntary, community and faith organisations, registered charities, not-for-profit social businesses and public sector bodies for non-statutory based provision.

 

What cannot be funded?

• Individuals
• Organisations with fewer than three unrelated trustees or directors or management committee members
• Projects and activities classed as a statutory responsibility
• Private Businesses or CICs limited by shares
• Retrospective funding
• Politically connected or exclusively religious activities

 

How to apply?

Please visit the Community Foundation for Merseyside’s website - www.cfmerseyside.org.uk – and complete an online application form (available on the fund page for this grant programme). Once you have submitted the online application, you will need to send the documents listed below. You can attach the documents to your online application, or email them to applications@cflm.org.uk

 

Closing Date

4pm on Monday 2^nd October 2023

We aim to make decisions by the beginning of November 2023 therefore the expectation is that funding delivery should be between November 2023 and March 2024.

 

Who to contact:

If you have any questions about the arts and culture delivery, please contact CFM.

Kelly Court, Programmes Manager:

kelly.court@cflm.org.uk

Programmes Team:

applications@cflm.org.uk / 0330 440 4900

 

If you have any questions about the sports or physical activity delivery, please contact MSP.

Kyle Tunstall, Sport and Physical Activity Officer:

k.tunstall@merseysidesport.com / 07894 398828

Calum Donnelly, Strategic Lead for Sport and Physical Activity:

c.donnelly@merseysidesport.com / 07739 254835

 

Documents that need to be included with your application:

 

1. A copy of your governing document

2. A copy of your latest annual accounts or income and expenditure document if a newer organisation

3. A copy of a recent bank statement for your group.

4. A list of your Trustees/Directors/Management Committee Members

5. A copy of your current Safeguarding Policy

 

If you have applied to us within the last 12 months and provided this information, we do not need you to send it again (unless anything has been updated since i.e. accounts) and we will require a bank statement dated within the last 3 months.

 

What happens next?

Completed applications are considered by Community Foundation staff to check eligibility and complete due diligence checks. You may be contacted for more information after applying and a decision-making panel will make decisions based on the fund’s criteria and the budget available.

 

Community Foundation for Merseyside

Third Floor, Stanley Building

43 Hanover Street,

Liverpool, L1 3DN

Email: applications@cflm.org.uk