This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
Listen
Help for those in most need
08/09/2006
Funding of £4 million for projects to help the most excluded groups in society was announced today.
The Multiple and Complex Needs Initiative will fund 14 pilot projects in a range of locations and activities across Scotland.
Communities Minister Malcolm Chisholm said:
"Research shows that health, education and other public services often do not reach the very people with the greatest need for them - those who experience multiple disadvantage.
"We have to do more to address this imbalance. It is what our Closing the Opportunity Gap approach to tackling poverty and exclusion is all about.
"We will learn from these pilot projects what works and what does not work. This way we will be able to see what approaches work best for people with multiple and complex needs and which can then be rolled out as best practice and adopted across different services throughout Scotland.
"In providing new opportunities and support we can help people to access the support they need in order to help themselves.
"The potential benefits for individuals and families are enormous - improving their physical and mental health and enabling them to lead fuller and more productive lives."
The largest award of £1 million over two years goes to a unique project by the Wise Group and the Scottish Prison Service, which ultimately aims to reduce reoffending rates. Working with Families Outside, it will recruit former inmates to act as mentors for newly released prisoners to help them integrate back into their families and find work or training. Research has shown that prisoners are six times less likely to reoffend if strong family ties are maintained.
Among other groups to benefit will be homeless people in Aberdeen getting the confidence to live independently; women in Tayside experiencing domestic abuse; people with a learning disability and travellers in the Scottish Borders who need to access health services; and black and ethnic minority older people in Edinburgh and Glasgow.
This initiative is a key part of the Closing the Opportunity Gap approach to tackling poverty and disadvantage, which has recently delivered Workforce Plus, a new employability framework to increase the chances of sustained employment for vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, and More Choices: More Chances, a new £10 million strategy to reduce the proportion of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET).
The Multiple and Complex Needs Initiative is part of the Executive's Closing the Opportunity Gap approach to tacking poverty and disadvantage.
As well as funding 14 projects over two years, the £4 million initiative will also fund a review of existing knowledge of good practice in this area and an evaluation of how to apply lessons to all public services in Scotland.
Details of the twelve projects:
Lothian Health Board (£840,000) to manage a project exploring how health, social care and voluntary sector partners in local Community Health Partnerships can work together to develop services responsive to a wide variety of users with multiple and complex needs in their area.
Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Youth Scotland(£59,000) to investigate the capacity of mainstream and specialist services to identify and respond to the often multiple and stigmatized needs of young LGBT clients.
NHS Borders (£138,000) to redesign services to meet the needs of new entrants/migrant workers, homeless people, travellers, and people with a learning disability in a rural area.
Aberdeen Carers (£83,500) to develop support services for male carers in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire, working in partnership with Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire Councils.
Waverley Care (£124,000) to develop HIV advisory, testing, and referral services for Africans living in Edinburgh and Glasgow, working with NHS Greater Glasgow, NHS Lothian, and local African community groups.
Greater Glasgow Health Board (£740,000) to develop inequalities sensitive practices in maternity, children, addiction and mental health services for those affected by poverty and other disadvantage.
The National Resource Centre for Ethnic Minority Health £180,000) to support women from ethnic minority communities in Glasgow who need additional support because of illness or disability.
The National Resource Centre for Ethnic Minority Health, in partnership with the Policy Research Institute on Ageing and Ethnicity (£194,821) to secure and improve services for black and ethnic minority older people in Scotland.
The Wise Group and the Scottish Prison Service (£1 million) Working with Families Outside to help short-term prisoners being released into disadvantaged areas in Glasgow, North Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire to reintegrate into the community, engage in employment or training opportunities and to rebuild family relationships.
The AberdeenFoyer (£20,000) to help homeless people in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire make the transition from supported accommodation to independent living, working with NHS Grampian.
NHS Lothian and the Scottish Recovery Network (£90,000) to fund a peer support service for people with mental health problems in the deprived area of Craigmillar in Edinburgh.
The RCA Trust (£107,943) to develop counselling services for people with alcohol problems and sensory impairment in the deprived areas of East Renfrewshire, Renfrewshire and Inverclyde.
Dundee City Council (£123,722) working with a consortium of partners in Tayside to develop joined-up support services for women, including those with children, who encounter domestic abuse alongside a range of other service needs such as substance misuse or homelessness.
The National Deaf Children's Society (£82,694) to improve the way in which they support deaf children of Scottish Asian families.