Throughout 2023, The Gloucestershire HAF team received £200,000 from the Contain Outbreak Management Fund (COMF). This funding enabled us to expand our offer further to provide activities and food for other vulnerable children and young people who may not be eligible for benefits related free school meals including children aged 0-5 years and 16 plus.
£68,000 was used during the summer and winter 2023, to pilot a HAF Youth Pass to increase the attendance of older young people aged 12-16. This offer was designed using feedback from older young people who wanted more independence and flexibility to attend activities across Gloucestershire. This has been a very successful aspect of our programme to date. With the additional funding available, district leads were able to increase targeted specific provision and increase older young people attendance by 9%.
Attached is a copy of the summer 2023 Tewkesbury Youth Pass monitoring form which includes feedback from young people involved in the youth pass and parents of these young people.
£6,000 was used to enhance our nutrition and nutritional education element of the programme. With the leadership from our Nutritionists, we were able to ensure that food provision closely followed school food standards and providers were offered training for nutritional education for both children and families. Providers were able to be more confident in providing food and nutritional education alongside their provision.
Through a library of online videos, further nutritional education was given through tips such as portion sizes and how to get children engaged in cooking. Our nutritionists have also created a large resource of nutrition booklets used by the HAF providers, parents/carers, and children. These booklets include recipes for families to cook together, activities to increase their knowledge on leading healthy lifestyles, culture diversity and SEND. Link to our library of booklets: https://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/education-and-learning/holiday-activities-and-food-programme/haf-cookbook/recipes/
£16,000 was used to increase the physical activity offer. In spring 2023 we commissioned The Warehouse climbing centre and high ropes. This was a countywide offer available to children and young people across Gloucestershire and included SEND specific sessions to enable children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities to attend with appropriate staffing ratios to meet the needs of the child.
The remaining £110,000 of the COMF funding was used to expand the HAF activities throughout spring, summer, and winter to reach other vulnerable children and young people who may not be eligible for benefits related FSM allowing them to attend HAF activities. In doing this, we were able to reduce stigma, enable same household siblings to be included and receive the benefits of attending enriching activities and access nutritious food, increasing the health and wellbeing of as many children as possible across Gloucestershire.
The 2023 – 2024 data showed that this additional funding was a great asset to the HAF programme and enabled Gloucestershire County Council to reach a further 2,461 children and young people in spring, 3,398 in the summer and 699 in the winter who were not eligible for benefits related free school meals.
