Invitation to Market Engagement Event – Independent Visiting and Advocacy for Bradford Children’s and Families Trust (BCFT)

Partners from Bradford Children and Families Trust and the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council are working together to review and develop Independent Visiting and Advocacy Services for Bradford's Looked-After Children or Care Leavers. Legislation imposes a duty on local authorities to make arrangements for the provision of advocacy and to appoint an independent visitor for children and young people intending to make representations under the Children Act 1989 (Adoption and Children Act 2002).

As well as requiring an Independent Visiting and Advocate service to meet its statutory obligations, Bradford Children’s and Families Trust wishes to work with the successful partner to adopt a casework approach which will utilise generic lessons learnt from advocates' work to develop more child-centred services. Children and young people eligible to receive a service are aged 0 to 21 years and up to 25 in the case of Care Leavers in full-time education The BCFT is seeking to work with providers who can demonstrate continual improvements in value for money achieved by deploying efficient and innovative ways to meet the needs of the children and young people.

We wish to invite potential providers to attend a market engagement event aimed at informing the development of the specification and our commissioning approach, ensuring the best service is achieved within the funding envelope. The event will aim to share our priorities, proposed service model, and commissioning approach while obtaining feedback from providers.

This also presents an opportunity for potential providers to highlight the latest developments and innovations within this sector/industry. Feedback from the market engagement event may be incorporated into the specification, ensuring it meets the needs of all parties. Joint instructions will then be sent.