GB-London: Thriving Communities Fund Evaluation

Research and development services and related consultancy services. Arts Council England, the National Academy for Social Prescribing and our partners are seeking to commission an external programme-level evaluation of the Thriving Communities Fund, to assess this programme against its intended aims and outcomes; and to develop a framework to collate the evaluation evidence of individual projects supported by the fund.

The Thriving Community Fund is a £1.8m initiative being administered by Arts Council England on behalf of the National Academy for Social Prescribing and fellow funding partners Historic England and Natural England, plus wider strategic partners NHS England and NHS Improvement, Sport England, the Office for Civil Society, the Money & Pensions Service and NHS Charities Together.

The Fund will support local voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise projects which bring together place-based partnerships to improve and increase the range and reach of available social prescribing community activities - especially for those people and communities most impacted by COVID19.

The Fund also aims to support and test a range of approaches to ensure social prescribing is sustainable and embedded in working practice beyond the 12 months of activity enabled by grants made through the programme. This will support the continued growth and long-term sustainability of social prescribing, and inform sector research, policy and development.

We require an experienced partner to deliver a programme-level evaluation to assess the fund against its main aims to:

•Strengthen the range of social prescribing activities offered locally;

•Enhance collaboration and networking between local organisations; and

•Enable social prescribing link workers to connect people to more creative community activities and services.

37. Thriving Communities projects have been funded for a one-year period between March 2021 and March 2022.

Each project will be undertaking their own evaluation and monitoring, and we expect the programme-level evaluation to develop a framework to collate and make use of this data along with conducting their own primary research.

We expect the evaluation to deliver interim findings and a final report. It is expected the final report will be published and will clearly communicate the key findings to a range of audiences.