Gloucestershire County Council, Barnwood Trust and Gloucestershire VCS Alliance Partnership 2024 – 2027

What is a short break?

The term ‘short break’ is used to describe services providing specialist opportunities, care and support to families of disabled children and young people so that:  

• disabled children and young people have opportunities to socialise independently in an environment that is safe and suitable for their needs; 

• unpaid carers receive a break from their caring responsibilities to maintain their resilience, and their physical and emotional wellbeing.  

How are short breaks funded in Gloucestershire?

Gloucestershire County Council Children’s Services are responsible for ensuring short breaks are provided for families of disabled children and young people who may have an EHCP[1]. Providers of short breaks are commissioned and paid by the council to create opportunities for these short breaks in the different areas of Gloucestershire.

Which services delivering short breaks are currently commissioned by Gloucestershire Children’s Services?

The following services are under contract to deliver short breaks with Gloucestershire Children’s Services:

• Active Impact
• Active Gloucestershire
• Belmont School
• Chapter One
• Forest Pulse
• Allsorts Gloucestershire

What is the partnership between Gloucestershire County Council, Barnwood Trust, and the Gloucestershire VCS Alliance?

The purpose of this partnership is to capture the learning from trialling the funding and commissioning of short breaks services in a different way. This will inform how the commissioning of these services can be redesigned for delivery from April 2027.  

Over a 2-year period, Barnwood Trust will deliver, and match-fund with Gloucestershire Children’s Services, a new grant funding round for short breaks provision in Gloucestershire. The fund will be targeted at the Gloucester City, Tewkesbury, and North Cotswold areas.  

To ensure we are able to capture as much learning as possible, Barnwood Trust will continue to fund 6 short breaks projects it has been funding since 2023, through the Short Breaks Fund. Gloucestershire Children’s Services will continue its contracts with the 5 short breaks providers they currently commission.  

Overall, Barnwood Trust will make a one-off investment of £1.2 million in funding for these services over this time. Barnwood Trust will also support the capture of learning from the short breaks providers across the county, to inform the design of the new process.  

The role of Gloucestershire VCS Alliance in this partnership is to advocate for the voluntary sector, ensuring engagement with the sector and working with Barnwood and Gloucestershire Children’s Services to ensure the new process works for all.   

Why is Barnwood Trust working in partnership with Gloucestershire Children’s Services?

Barnwood Trust’s purpose is to change conditions for disabled people and people with mental health conditions in Gloucestershire. We do this through learning and collaboration, sharing research, and looking for better ways to fund.  

Barnwood Trust and Gloucestershire County Council Children’s Services have been meeting regularly to understand the issues with short breaks provision, since Barnwood published its research about Barriers to Short Breaks in 2023.  

The aim of this partnership is to influence better access to inclusive and engaging short breaks for families of disabled children and young people. By gathering learning about how to commission short breaks well, Barnwood Trust will support Gloucestershire Children’s Services to put that learning into practice. The learning from this work will be used to support the development of commissioning processes from 2027.   

To enable this, we will form a Community of Practice in collaboration with all the organisations providing the services, Gloucestershire VCS Alliance and Gloucestershire Children’s Service, to learn together, encourage a wider conversation about how we can collectively meet need in the county and to create the legacy from the investment.  

Barnwood is also commissioning an external evaluation of the short breaks work so far, and the test and learn project, which will also feed into the legacy of the project. All of this will help to inform Gloucestershire Children’s Service’s full recommissioning process to secure new short breaks contracts beginning on 1st April 2027. 

What is the Short Breaks Fund and where can I find information about it?

Short breaks providers delivering opportunities for disabled children and young people in the areas of Gloucester, Tewkesbury and North Cotswold will be able to apply for a Short Breaks Fund to deliver their services between April 2025 and April 2027.  

The Short Breaks Fund for these areas is being part financed by Barnwood Trust and Gloucestershire Children’s Services.  

Information about this new funding opportunity, including who can apply, how much organisations can apply for, and the criteria against which applicants will be scored is available in the Funding Pack on the Barnwood Trust website.

Why is the new funding only available in Gloucester, Tewkesbury and North Cotswold?

Since 2021, there has not been short breaks service in Tewkesbury and the North Cotswolds as no tenders were received from short breaks providers in those areas. Gloucester has also been identified as an area needing additional short breaks provision.  

The short breaks funding has been allocated to these areas, to explore different approaches to the provision of community short breaks for children and their families and providing sufficient and meaningful data to support the redesign of service specifications for recommissioning of Short Breaks in 2027. 

Short breaks provision currently under contract to Gloucestershire Children’s Services in other parts of the county will continue for the duration of this partnership. As will services by short breaks providers already funded by Barnwood Trust through the Short Breaks Fund. 

Who currently has a Short Breaks Fund from Barnwood Trust?

Information about the current 6 projects funded through Barnwood’s Short Breaks Fund can be found here.

Why is the funding starting in April 2025?

The date for the funding has been decided to align with the existing short breaks contracts that have been extended by Gloucestershire Children’s Services. Having all the projects running at the same time will improve the learning we are able to capture.  

What will happen after April 2027?

During this funding round, Barnwood Trust, Gloucestershire County Council, funded organisations, parent-carers, and disabled young people, will be involved in redesigning the council’s short breaks commissioning offer in Gloucestershire.  

Contracts under the new commissioning process will launch from 1st April 2027. Barnwood’s funding will end at this point. 

Who can I speak to about the short breaks work?

To talk about the Short Breaks Fund, contact Ged Cassell, Funding Policy and Evaluation Manager, at ged.cassell@barnwoodtrust.org

To talk about the partnership and the short breaks project at Barnwood Trust, contact Dan Jacques, Social Change Manager, at dan.jacques@barnwoodtrust.org

To talk to someone at Gloucestershire County Council about the short breaks work, contact Hannah Chesters at hannah.chesters@gloucestershire.gov.uk

What evidence is there for a need to do this work?

In 2023, Barnwood Trust published research exploring what it was like to access and deliver short breaks and respite care services in Gloucestershire. The project was informed by people with experience of providing, utilising, or supporting others to access these services and captured the perspectives of parent-carers, disabled young people, and providers.  

This research can be found here: https://www.barnwoodtrust.org/change-needed/sharing-insights/research/short-breaks-and-respite-care-research/  

Barnwood Trust funded 6 projects to deliver short breaks across the county. This brief was based on the research and was co-designed with parent-carers and disabled young people. We have been gathering learning from all 6 projects over the past 12 months. This has included learning about better practice in both the delivery and commissioning of short breaks.  

The work so far has highlighted opportunities for innovation and has formed the starting point for this new collaboration with Gloucestershire Children’s Services.  

 

[1] ‘Education, Health and Care Plan’ – See further information on the Council for Disabled Children website here.