Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) - Expression of Interest Application Form - Easter 2022 (Round 1)

Overview

Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) Programme 2022 for East Sussex - Expression of Interest Application Form – Easter

Please note the link to start the online survey and complete the EOI is at the bottom of this page.

This is the first EOI application window for Easter HAF provision 2022. 

Programme Overview

The government has recently announced that the holiday activities and food (HAF) programme will be continued for 2022.

As in 2021, funds have been made available to every local authority in England to coordinate free holiday provision, including healthy food and enriching activities for Easter, Summer and Christmas.

Who the HAF programme funding is for?

The funding for this holiday activity and food programme is for children who receive benefits-related free school meals (Reception to Year 11).

The programme can be available to children not eligible for free school meals, who can pay to attend, but priority should be given to eligible children. We will support providers to offer wide access to places for children depending on local supply and demand for provision of holiday activities and food. This could be through collaborating with existing holiday provision in the area or operating a bespoke model.

As HAF provision is targeted at children eligible for FSM, please see the attached FSM data maps for more information about targeted areas across the county. These are the same focus areas as in 2021.

 Provision during the Easter holiday should be for 4 hours a day across 4 days if possible, and the 4 days of session delivery do not have to run consecutively and can be delivered split across the two weeks. Provision for a shorter period and/or longer days can also potentially be funded as long as the other HAF criteria are met.

We are interested in proposals from providers who can deliver within one or more of areas – and from providers who would be interested in ‘scaling up’ their current provision, to meet the needs of a wider cohort of children and families within East Sussex. We would be delighted to discuss ideas providers might have, at this stage, for any support they may need to scale up their provision – and to discuss what this might entail.

Please get in touch with the HAF team to find out more about the programme or with any queries - HAF@eastsussex.gov.uk.

Visit the government website for more information on the national programme.

Completing your expression of interest application

We would like to encourage applications via the EOI below. Please read through the information provided.

Programme requirements

We are interested in proposals from providers who can deliver:

1. Enriching activities: clubs must provide fun and enriching activities that provide children with opportunities to develop new skills or knowledge, to consolidate existing skills and knowledge, or to try out new experiences. This could include physical activities such as football, table tennis, cricket; creative activities such as putting on a play, junk modelling, drumming workshops; or experiences such as a nature walk, visiting a city farm etc.
2. Food: clubs must provide at least one meal a day (breakfast, lunch or tea) and all food provided at the club (including snacks) must meet school food standards. The expectation is that the majority of food served by providers will be hot, however, we acknowledge that there will be occasions when this is not possible and that a cold alternative should be used. All food provided as part of the programme must comply with regulations on food preparation and take into account allergies and dietary requirements and preferences as well as any religious or cultural requirements for food.
3. Physical activities: clubs must provide activities which meet the Physical Activity Guidelines on a daily basis.
4. Nutritional education: clubs must include an element of nutritional education each day aimed at improving the knowledge and awareness of healthy eating for children. These do not need to be formal learning activities and could for example include activities such as getting children involved in food preparation and cooking, growing fruit and vegetables, and taste tests.
5. Food education for families and carers: clubs must include at least weekly training and advice sessions for parents, carers or other family members which provide advice on how to source, prepare and cook nutritious and low-cost food.
6. Signposting and referrals: clubs must be able to provide information, signposting or referrals to other services and support that would benefit the children who attend their provision and their families. This could include sessions, information provided by:

i. Citizen’s Advice

ii.School Nurses, dentists or other healthcare practitioners

iii. Children’s Services and other local authority services

iv. Housing Support Officers

v. Jobcentre Plus

vi. Organisations providing financial education

7. Policies and procedures: clubs must be able to demonstrate and explain their safeguarding arrangements and have relevant and appropriate policies and procedures in place in relation to: 

i. Safeguarding

ii. Health and Safety

iii. Insurance

iv. Accessibility and inclusiveness, including addressing equality and diversity

v. Where appropriate, clubs must also be compliant with the Ofsted requirements for working with children

The aim of the programme is to make free places available to children eligible for free school meals for the equivalent of at least 4 hours a day, 4 days a week, 6 weeks a year. The HAF programme needs to cover 4 weeks in the summer and a week’s worth of provision in each of the Easter and Christmas holidays. We are not looking for one provider to cover all of this provision and understand it is likely to be a collective effort. It is also envisaged that we will be able to target more FSM families, age ranges and areas as well as diversify the content, if we divide the provision between various organisations.

One of the main requirements is to provide food and activities around food, if you are unable to facilitate this, we may have options to partner you with other organisations. We welcome applications from joint organisations, and we will look to partner organisations if we feel your applications could be stronger together and/or if in order to satisfy the HAF criteria, you need to collaborate with another organisation.

Organisations can therefore apply just to deliver the enrichment element of the programme, or the food element – but decisions on funding will therefore need to take into account of appropriate linking across different projects to ensure that there can be a co-ordinated approach to delivery for those children and families involved.