Whole Family Wellbeing fund

Background

The Scottish Government aims to ensure that every family gets the right support at the right time for long as it is needed, to fulfil children's rights to be raised safely in their own families. 

It introduced the Whole Family Wellbeing Fund in 2022 for the duration of this Parliament to help families to overcome challenges before they reach crisis point, and to significantly reduce the number of children and young people in care by 2030. 

The Scottish Government's ambition is that by 2030 at least 5% of all community-based health and social care spend will be on preventative whole family support measures.

The Renfrewshire Children's Services Partnership (RCSP)

Renfrewshire's Children's Services Partnership (RCSP) is responsible for ensuring that services delivered to children, young people and their families in Renfrewshire are the best they can be.

Membership of the RCSP include the council, other public sector organisations, and the third sector. Together, we identify local priorities and plan how we can join up to add value and deliver services to children, young people and their families that make a real difference to their lives.

One of the aims of the RCSP is for family support to be readily available to families that need it. We want to make sure that families can access the help they need, where and when they need it. 

We want parents to be able to access holistic support which addresses the needs of children and adults in a family at the time of need rather than at crisis point. This will help families to flourish and reduce the chances of family breakdown, and of children entering the care system.

The Scottish Government has provided an amount of Whole Family Wellbeing Funding to the RCSP to build local capacity for transformational system change and to scale up and drive the delivery of holistic whole family support services.

We know from local data that 18% of Renfrewshire's children live in families affected by poverty. Our communities face further challenge through a cost-of-living crisis, with the cost of heating our homes and buying food and basic provisions increasing. Some parents can feel isolated without a strong network of family support, not knowing who to turn to for help.

More and more of Renfrewshire's children and young people are seeking support with their mental health and wellbeing. We understand the link between adverse childhood experiences and the risk this presents to mental health and wellbeing. We also appreciate that the impacts of these events can sometimes carry through to adulthood, and that parents and carers might struggle to cope and respond positively to certain situations or challenges. 

This reinforces our approach to early intervention, and developing ways to work with children, young people, and their families to help them cope before reaching a crisis.
Third sector and community organisations can play a vital role in supporting families within their local communities and are able to use knowledge and connections to build a network of support around vulnerable families.

National principles for holistic whole family support

The 10 principles of holistic family support are:

1. Non-stigmatising: Support should be promoted and provided free from stigma and judgement. Services should be as normalised as accessing universal services.
2. Whole Family: Support should be rooted in GIRFEC and wrapped around about the whole family. This requires relevant join up with adult services & whole system, place based, preventative addressing inequalities.
3. Needs based: Support should be tailored to fit around each individual family, not be driven by rigid services or structures. It should cover the spectrum of support from universal services, more tailored support for wellbeing and intensive support (to prevent or in response to statutory interventions). Creative approaches to support should be encouraged.
4. Assets and community based: Support should be empowering, building on existing strengths within the family and wider community. Families should be able to 'reach in' not be 'referred to'. Support must be explicitly connected to locations that work for local families and the community, such as schools, health centres, village halls, and sports centres.
5. Timely and Sustainable: Flexible, responsive, and proportionate support should be available to families as soon as they need it, and for as long as it is required, adapting to changing needs.
6. Promoted: Families should have easy, well understood routes of access to support. They should feel empowered to do so and have choice about the support they access to ensure it meets their needs.
7. Take account of families' voice: At a strategic and individual level, children and families should be meaningfully involved in the design, delivery, evaluation, and continuous improvement of services. Support should be based on trusted relationships between families and professionals working together with mutual respect to ensure targeted and developmental support.
8. Collaborative and Seamless: Support should be multi-agency and joined up across services, so families don't experience multiple 'referrals' or inconsistent support.
9. Skilled and supported workforce: Support should be informed by an understanding of attachment, trauma, inequality, and poverty. Staff should be supported to take on additional responsibilities and trusted to be innovative in responding to the needs of families.
10. Underpinned by Children's Rights: Children's rights should be the funnel through which every decision and support service is viewed.

Key aims of the fund

The key aims of the Whole Family Wellbeing fund are to:

• support the whole system transformational change required to reduce the need for crisis intervention
• shift investment towards prevention and early intervention.

In accordance with The Promise, the Scottish Government recognises that we need whole system change in line with the 10 Principles for Holistic Family Support incorporating the following core components of how holistic, whole family support is delivered:

• Children and families at the centre of design - a children's rights-based approach to improved family wellbeing, with services designed with children, young people, and their families' needs at the centre, supporting all families to flourish and thrive.
• Availability and access - all families know how to and can access multi-sectoral, holistic, whole family support.
• Leadership, workforce, and culture - cross-sectoral commitment to collaboration and innovation which empowers and supports the workforce to provide family-centred holistic support.
• Whole system approach – a collaborative, multi-agency and multidisciplinary approach to the funding, commissioning, and delivery of family support.

Applications are open to voluntary and community groups and organisations that have a constitution bank account, such as:

• registered charities
• groups or clubs
• not-for-profit companies
• community interest companies
• community councils.

We are looking for projects focusing on community step change.

Your proposal must be a newly developed innovation for your organisation which will engage more parent and families - not just based on the families you are currently working with.

Projects and activities should be:

• open to all families across Renfrewshire, free and easy to access
• inclusive, welcoming, respectful, and safe
• able or willing to provide connections to other services and supports
• flexible in its provision of support to include evenings and weekend where required.

Examples of projects and activities might be:

• out of school and weekend clubs for children with disabilities where children can have fun, and their parents can have some respite time
• organisation to release a member of staff to be trained and to deliver high quality parenting programmes
• parenting support groups for parents / carers of children with autism using a toolkit recommended in the Autism Toolkit
• support in setting boundaries for families of children displaying distressed and risk-taking behaviour through a training programme such as those promoted in the Council Parenting Strategy
• activity group programmes for families to build family cohesion, have fun together and learn new skills around a particular area such as cooking, gardening, arts and crafts etc.

The funding could also be for staffing and related costs that provides a range of supports. 

This could include but is not limited to 

• advice and guidance
• practical help and support
• befriending support
• group work focused on specific outcomes.

What you cannot use the funding for

You cannot use funding for:

• one-off activities, like an open or fun day
• activities that are not free
• events to raise funds for other charities
• costs for activities that have already taken place
• applications to support individuals.

What your application should include

Your application should describe:

• the work the organisation wants to host
• how it meets the needs of families who are in one or more of these categories:
  • families of children with a neurodevelopmental disorder, for example Autistic Spectrum disorder (ASD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) either pre or post diagnosis
  • families of children aged 0 to 8 requiring parenting support or support for distressed behaviours
  • families of children aged 11 to 16 displaying distressed or risk-taking behaviour
  • families of children with disabilities.

Your application should be in line with the 10 principles of holistic family support.

You must also make sure your application demonstrates your family engagement and safeguarding procedures.

How we make a decision

Applications will be reviewed by a panel of staff from Renfrewshire Children's Services Partnership before a decision is made.

The scoring panel will meet in February.

We may visit you to gather further information about your project before making a final decision.

Final decisions will be made by the end of February 2026.

Conditions of the grant

If you are awarded funding, you must accept and comply with Renfrewshire Council's standard grant terms and conditions.

The funding must demonstrate impact and added value for families. We are required to report to the Scottish Government on how we are positively effecting transformational change for families.

We’ll ask you to submit quarterly reports on progress against your objectives. We’ll create a form to do this and provide you with ongoing support to ensure you have the appropriate data sets in place.

If you’re applying to fund a staff member to be trained and to deliver an evidence-based programme, you must commit to that staff member engaging in the coaching and supervision programmes that we offer, and to the recording and reporting of relevant data which shows impact on family wellbeing. 

The funding must be spent by the end of March 2027.

Ongoing support for successful projects

A WFWF Community of Practice will be set up for the successful bidders to be able to collaborate and share ideas throughout the duration of the lifespan of the fund.