Money for intergenerational volunteering

The Generations Together programme is seeking bids from all English local authorities with social services/children's service responsibilities to submit expressions of interest, in partnership with third sector organisations, for funding to develop demonstrator sites of intergenerational practice.

It wants local authorities to consider how they can utilise the talents of our younger and older people, whether it be for their own benefit, or the benefit of the whole community. It is a £5.5m programme which will run during 2009-10 and 2010-11. The closing date for applications is 10 June 2009.

The Generations Together demonstrator programme is designed to:

• Generate wider interest in and thinking about intergenerational work
• Increase the number of volunteers working on intergenerational activity by 20,000 by the end of the programme
• Encourage a more strategic and sustainable approach
• Provide robust evidence of the effectiveness of intergenerational initiatives, and in particular, develop evidence about which models are most effective in delivering which outcomes, for which groups of people, in which situations.

Although the local authority will hold the contract for the delivery of the scheme, it is worth contacting your local Director of Children Services and/or Adult Services to see how local organisations can support the programme. It is a commitment of the funding bid that half of money received by a local authority will need to be directed towards third sector provision.

For more information go to http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/youthmatters/ytf/generationstogether/