New £3.3m fund to support BAME mothers and children launched

Launched by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), the fund will support three-year community projects in England aimed at tackling obesity, reducing smoking and improving learning among mothers and young children.

This third round of the Health and Wellbeing Fund aimed to ‘level up’ communities and promote equality is now open for applications from voluntary and community social enterprises. It has been launched with the theme of ‘starting well’ to improve outcomes for mothers and babies from pre-conception up to two-and-a-half-years-old.

Public health minister Jo Churchill said: ‘This year we have launched the Health and Wellbeing Fund which is centred around starting well, to make sure mothers have the help they need to make the right decisions to support their health, and the health of their babies.’

The fund aims to tackle key public health issues from an early age which disproportionately affect people from economically deprived areas, such as obesity. It is open to applications from charity-run projects aimed at:

• Improving perinatal mental health
• Reducing the percentage of babies born with low birthweight
• Increasing babies being breastfed
• Obesity prevention and support
• Reducing smoking or encouraging smoke-free homes
• Improving learning, speech and language development
• Improving immunisation rates and reducing rates of preventable disease.

The Health and Wellbeing Fund is run by the recently relaunched VCSE Health and Wellbeing Alliance, a partnership between voluntary sectors and the health and care system to provide a voice and improve the health and wellbeing for all communities.  

The £3.3 million is available to support the new schemes in 2020/21, with funding for schemes planned for a further two years up to 2022/23.

Applicants have until October 30 at midday to apply and the successful projects will be announced in December.