Welcome to our new website. We are really excited to share with you our new focus and the vision, mission and strategy we have put in place for the next few years. We want our new site to make it easier for you to understand what we are trying to achieve and to help us find the partners and projects  to make it happen. Our site will also make it easier to share the work and the learning to help influence change and service improvement.

The official launch of our new site will take place in September. In the meantime, please take a look at our updated priority areas and latest work. We welcome your feedback and look forward to hearing from any of you with opportunities that align well with our priority areas.

In this blog, our Programme Development Lead, Holly, shares details of the first four grants made in response to the Better Careers for Better Care open funding call. A further three grant proposals are being presented at the Foundation’s Board meeting in September

As part of our new strategic and collaborative grant-making programme into adult social care, we are very excited to share news of four grants agreed at our June Board. The four proposals were submitted in response to an open call between November 2023 and January 2024, and will now join North London Councils as grantee organisations of our Better Careers for Better Care programme. Three more proposals will come to the September Board, completing allocation of the full £2 million designated fund.

Taking a collaborative approach to developing the grant proposals has both increased our understanding of the work and the complexities of the adult social care sector. The process has also helped us to build strong relationships with project leads which will enable learning to be captured and shared for the benefit of the sector and the Foundation’s future grant-making.

If you would like to remain updated on programme news, upcoming events, and future funding opportunities, please email me – hbaine@raynefoundation.org.uk

Integrated Neighbourhood Care – Leeds

Grant agreed: £400,000 over 3 years (July 2024-June 2027)

Two strong EOIs were received from Leeds, one from the City Council to support the development of outcomes-focused homecare and the other from the Health and Care Academy focused on strengthening the workforce infrastructure for small providers. As the bids named each other as partners, we asked for a combined proposal bringing together the two programmes with a maximum budget of £400,000.

The combined proposal will strengthen the outcomes-focused homecare service through co-production of roles and additional development capacity for providers to establish and supervise delegation of clinical healthcare tasks to care workers. It will also strengthen the wider team around the person through rotational apprenticeships and preceptorships in care settings and system leadership opportunities provided by the Academy.

We are delighted to be partnered with Leeds as they develop a new model of homecare accompanied by new commissioning and procurement processes, that has the potential for scaling across the country. The model includes paying staff for the full shift and sharing the contract with the community nursing team to develop delegated healthcare.  Many other Local Authorities and community health services are watching with interest to see how this improves the experience for people drawing on care and support.

In line with the Foundation’s belief that collaboration is fundamental to tackling the systemic challenges to workforce development, we believe coming alongside an area and proposal with collaboration as its modus operandi maximises the potential for our funding to contribute to transformational change in adult social care.

Enhanced Roles in Social Care – North East London

£300,000 over 28 months (July 2024-Oct 2026)

Care City Innovation CIC and the Barking, Havering, and Redbridge Community Education Provider Network (BHR CEPN) are leading a partnership across North East London (NEL) alongside the NEL Integrated Care Board (NEL ICB), the seven NEL ‘places’[1], social care providers coordinated by NEL Care Association Care Providers Voice, and community NHS trusts North East London Foundation Trust (NELFT) and East London Foundation Trust (ELFT). The proposal will develop and deliver enhanced roles in social care, both Trainee Nurse Associates and Allied Health Professional Assistant Practitioners. The programme will both create apprenticeship opportunities for existing care staff and fund the enhanced integrated roles.

The work is based on learning from a pilot and aims to tackle barriers identified in the pilot.  These were a lack of agreed-upon governance structures needed to facilitate cross-organisational delegation and supervision (during the pilot these arrangements were established on a case-by-case basis) and a lack of adapted commissioning models to create and support enhanced roles within the care setting for those who have completed the apprenticeships. Funding from the Foundation combined with partner contributions will be used to develop a sustainable system of training, governance, and funding to deliver career and development opportunities within the care sector, support integration and improve the experience of people drawing on care.

The proposal is based on existing collaborative relationships between health and social care providers and commissioners and takes a considered and explorative approach to problem solving, drawing on national and local good practice. By putting health and care integration into practice, the project hopes to establish something tangible to commission into the future.

[1] NEL operates as seven ‘places’ with City of London and Hackney combining to become City & Hackney.

Care Worker Advisory Board and Champion Project – national

Grant agreed: £200,000 over 26 months (August 2024-September 2026)

Throughout our consultation, we heard that there is a lack of representation of the care worker perspective in strategic, decision-making spaces. However, there is an appetite to hear and learn from care workers and to build collaborative solutions to workforce development challenges. The Care Workers’ Charity (CWC) is at the forefront of discussions with governmental and sector leaders, and through its advocacy arm works to amplify the voices of care workers and champion their cause. CWC is invited to represent the care worker perspective at government roundtables, academic centres, and policy forums, but does not currently have the capacity to respond to all requests and cannot hope to represent the myriad experiences of care workers across the UK, a workforce that is as diverse as the UK population itself.

With our funding, CWC will develop an Advisory Board made up of 20 care workers as well as recruit 30-40 Care Worker Champions. The Advisors and Champions will receive training in public speaking, media engagement and access to research and other opportunities. CWC will establish a network of Advisors and Champions that will enable care workers to share regional insights, foster collaboration and learn from each other’s experiences. Care workers will be supported to share their stories and insights, enhance their skills and visibility and participate in strategy, decision-making and policy arenas.

By building a diverse group of trained and supported Advisors and Champions, CWC will amplify the voice of care workers and support their contribution to collaborative practice and policy solutions. In April, CWC held a roundtable discussion with 10 care workers to start thinking about the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of an Advisory Board and Champion network, providing insight into possible areas of focus for the Advisors and Champions. Job security, sick pay, emotional wellbeing, bereavement support, and training and development opportunities were all highlighted as issues that need attention and solutions built with care workers.

Changing the story of adult social care – national

Grant agreed: £116,500 over 3 years

Acknowledging adult social care is at ‘crisis point’, ADASS (The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services) commissioned an independent report. Time to Act: A Roadmap for transforming adult social care in England was published in April 2023 and identified 10 key issues including the need to build sustained cross-party, political backing for the long-term transformation of adult social care. ADASS developed this finding into a communications and influencing plan which was approved by its trustees in November 2023. It focused on changing the narrative and public perception of social care as the way to achieve political commitment.

ADASS is now working in partnership with the Local Government Association (LGA), #SocialCareFuture and Think Local Act Personal (TLAP) to build an allied social care movement. Part of this includes a programme to train and support the social care leaders that make up its membership, resourcing them to become long-term ambassadors and movement builders for the sector. ADASS will focus on developing and delivering training to social care leaders within local authorities and offer resources to partners to train their members including the LGA, #SocialCareFuture and TLAP.

We believe that in combination with the Care Worker Champion project detailed above, this work could significantly alter the way care workers are seen, valued, and included in workforce development strategy and decision-making. It will also remind them of the valuable role they are playing daily, offer hope that change is possible and boost morale.

Social Care Workforce Programme – North Central London

Grant agreed: £340,000 over two years (Aug 2023-Aug 2025)

Our first ‘pilot’ grant was to the North London Councils in June 2023 in support of their Social Care Workforce Programme. The Programme includes workstreams focused on recruitment, progression and skills development, and wellbeing. The Foundation has funded two elements of the broader programme.

The first is a Leadership and Integration programme to develop social care leaders with the confidence, skills, and relationships to participate in the Integrated Care Board. The programme is being delivered by My Home Life England and the Foundation hopes that this will enable and empower the voice of social care within strategic, decision-making spaces.

The second is contributing to the development of a co-designed Apprenticeship Programme. The Foundation’s funding will support providers to release their staff to participate in apprenticeship programmes by funding the organisational costs of hosting apprenticeships. Providers had identified this as a barrier to taking up existing apprenticeship opportunities and the Foundation’s funding will test this theory.

At the end of last year, the Rayne Foundation, for the first time in its history, put out an open call for Expressions of Interest (EOIs) in collaborative projects for Better Careers for Better Care. The funding call was seeking bids focused on transformation within adult social care, and in particular on workforce development and career progression opportunities within the care sector. We based our funding priorities on what we had heard from the sector through a period of learning and consultation. Read my blog here to learn more about this journey.

Taking a more strategic and collaborative approach to grant-giving is a test for us, to see how the Foundation’s limited resources can have the biggest positive impact in our areas of special interest. Learn more about this approach from our Director Crispin’s blog here.

In this blog, we will cover:

• The response to the funding call
• Emerging themes
• Bids being developed to full application
• Internal learning so far
• Our plans moving forward

Response to the funding call

We did not know what response we would receive to the funding call in terms of the number, focus or character of the bids. We received 48 EOIs from across England and were deeply impressed by the passion and commitment to improving the experience of care workers and people drawing on care, and the scale of ambition to transform workforce development and career progression within adult social care.

The exclusions which are a part of our open grants programme did not apply to the open call, and as such we received EOIs from a wide range of organisations with almost a third coming from partnerships led by statutory bodies including Local Authorities, NHS Trusts, and Integrated Care Boards. The call was kindly shared by colleagues in the sector including Skills for Care via the We Are Social Care Nursing newsletter, IMPACT and ADASS and as a result there was a good geographical spread across the bids we received, with particularly good representation from North East and Eastern England.

The quality of the EOIs was very high and there were many more excellent projects proposed than could be funded by the money available. Longlisting and then shortlisting the EOIs, with the support of an Assessment Panel made up of External Advisors and Foundation staff and trustees, was an exciting yet difficult process due to the high calibre of the proposals we received. All those involved recognised the privilege of assessing the EOIs and the responsibility in the decision-making process.

Emerging Themes

Across the 48 bids, certain themes emerged, indicative of current best practice and trends within the sector. They included:

• Recruitment, training and development through Health and Care Academies.
• Strengthening and growing the social care workforce through opportunities for local people and the existing workforce.
• Values-based recruitment.
• The need for collaborative infrastructure for the external workforce to overcome the varied and fragmented provider landscape.
• The need for commissioning models to focus on outcomes and facilitate integration of health and social care.
• Commitment to hearing and amplifying care workers’ voice.

Many of the bids we received involved piloting or rolling out best practice career progression opportunities for particular roles within the social care workforce or developing specific skills such as leadership, delegated healthcare tasks and dementia care. The EOIs that scored most highly also included thinking around the commissioning models that would be required to maximise the potential of these career progression opportunities and what needs to be in place to make the case for sustainable investment.

Bids being developed to full application

We have now completed the shortlisting process and are working alongside partner organisations to develop seven full applications to be taken to the Foundation’s Board over the next six months. These seven bids fall into two broad camps.

The first camp is made up of bids based in a particular geography, where the proposed work has an element focused on improving care provision through career progression or training opportunities in combination with an element focused on developing the commissioning model to support improved care provision. Having both providers and commissioners working together, ready to challenge and change the way they do things to support workforce development, felt like the most fertile ground for transformation at a systems level.

Through the many stories those in the sector have generously shared with us, we are acutely aware of the need to shift the narrative around social care to one that acknowledges, values, and celebrates the skills, passion, commitment, and love displayed by care workers each and every day. The second group of bids being developed therefore focus on supporting and enabling those working in social care to share their stories, shift the narrative, and influence both policy and strategic decision-making at a national level.

​Internal learning

The Better Careers for Better Care funding programme is testing a new way of funding for the Foundation and as such we are committed to reflecting and learning throughout the journey. Below outlines the way in which the funding programme differs from our open grants programme, and our internal learning so far.

More strategic and directive in what we are seeking to fund

By being specific about our funding priorities and criteria for assessment, the vast majority of the bids we received were eligible for funding. We were deeply impressed by the quality of the bids and have reflected as a team that by being clearer about what we are likely to fund in all of our grant-making programmes, we will better support potential applicants to understand whether their work is a good fit for the Foundation’s funding and in their application to us. We are currently reviewing and updating our open grants application process and guidance with this at the forefront of our thinking.

Additionally, by being more focused in what we would fund through Better Careers for Better Care, we have learnt a huge amount about the transformative work going on across the adult social care sector. We feel confident that we can be even more specific about what we are likely to fund in any future funding rounds based on this learning.

Expression of Interest process and scoring system

The EOIs were scored by the Assessment Panel using the funding criteria. Guiding questions were agreed collectively by the panel to support consistency of thinking when scoring. While the EOI highlighted the criteria to applicants as the scoring system, it did not ask specific questions against each criterion. This made the scoring fairly complex for assessors and may have made writing the EOI more complicated than necessary for applicants. In future, a simplified system with questions in the EOI which reflect the scoring criteria could provide a more straight-forward and effective system for both assessors and applicants.

Open invitation to connect in the development of bids and feedback offered to those that were unsuccessful

The opportunity to meet with Holly, the Programme Development Lead was taken up by more than 40 organisations over the course of the nine weeks that the funding call was open. Following the funding call, feedback was given via email to each applicant, and follow-up calls took place with a quarter of unsuccessful applicants. These numbers indicate an appetite from grantees to engage with funders to understand their priorities and decision-making. Across all conversations, there was a keen desire to continue to engage and to create a community of practice bringing together people and organisations trying to do things differently within adult social care.

Removal of exclusions in terms of type of organisation

The removal of exclusions increased the range of organisations that connected with the Foundation and, importantly in the context of adult social care, included statutory bodies that are currently struggling to enable innovation due to financial constraints and restrictions. In order for the Foundation to contribute to positive social change in this area, it felt vital to exercise our freedom to fund where the commitment, energy and momentum to transform is, and where we can make most difference regardless of the organisation’s constitution. As part of the review of our open grants programme, we will be challenging ourselves to explore which exclusions we need to retain and why.

Assessment Panel including External Advisors

It was a privilege to benefit from the insight and expertise brought to the panel by the four External Advisors. The Advisors brought experience of and expertise in commissioning, delivering, advocating for, and drawing on social care services, and were involved not only in the decision-making on which bids to develop to full application, but also the framing and guidance provided to potential applicants. The supportive challenge provided by the Advisors greatly enhanced the design and communication of the grant-making process.

The variety of perspectives held by the Assessment Panel led to a fantastically informed and robust discussion of the shortlisted EOIs, and there was real excitement from the panel about the bids being moved forward to full application. For us at the Foundation, having the benefit of the External Advisors’ expertise and experience was invaluable in the decision-making process and gives us additional confidence in the work going forward. The External Advisors have kindly offered to stay engaged with the programme to provide further guidance and support as the grants are made and the work starts on the ground.

External evaluators supporting from the outset

Our external evaluator Bean Research was commissioned in September last year and was able to feed into the design and delivery of the funding call. Throughout this period, the Bean team also worked with the Assessment Panel to develop an Impact Framework for the programme which then supported the assessment of bids. Being able to articulate from the outset how we hope to measure impact across the grants supported the Assessment Panel’s discussions and improved our decision-making.

The Bean team has since been meeting with the partner applicants to develop specific evaluation plans for each grant which feed into the overarching Impact Framework. By working in this way, we hope to better understand the impact of the individual grants and the Better Careers for Better Care programme overall, how we can build greater impact and fund the most impactful change, and ultimately whether there is a strong case for the Foundation to continue to invest in this way and at this scale.

Next steps

In terms of the Better Careers for Better Care programme, we hope to see all the designated funding pot committed by the end of 2024. Alongside these grants, we intend to share updates and learning as the programme continues and would like to bring colleagues together to share best practice and support collaboration. We will develop plans to contribute to wider sector networks and support a community of practice over the coming months.

In terms of our broader grant-making, much of the learning from running the open call will feed into the revision of the Foundation’s open grant application process and guidance. This will be published in Summer this year. Learning around impact evaluation and drawing on external expertise will continue to be reflected upon to support our future grant-making.

If you would like to receive further information on these plans as they develop and on any further funding opportunities, please email Programme Development Lead Holly to be added to the mailing list – hbaine@raynefoundation.org.uk